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Central Asian northern desert

The 8th largest desert in the world

663,900km²

The Central Asian northern desert is an ecoregion in the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, located in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The annual precipitation ranges from 100 to 150 mm (4 to 6 in), the winters are cold at −10 to −15 °C (14 to 5 °F) and the summers hot at around 25 °C (77 °F). There are a range of habitat types including salt flats, clay desert, rocky desert and some sand desert. The vegetation consists of scanty xeric shrubs including Artemisia and Salsola. The fauna is varied, as well as mammals and birds, there are a large number of reptiles and many species of invertebrate. Some protected areas are included in this ecoregion but other parts are being degraded by conversion to farmland, overgrazing and poaching.

Location: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan.

Desert data from Wikidata (CC0).

Other major deserts

  1. Sahara9,200,000 km²
  2. Gobi Desert2,354,460 km²
  3. Arabian Desert2,330,000 km²
  4. Libyan Desert1,100,000 km²
  5. Kalahari Desert930,000 km²
  6. Rub' al Khali680,000 km²
  7. Kazakh semi-desert678,871 km²
  8. Syrian Desert518,000 km²