• Abu Dhabi
• Acacia ehrenbergiana
• Accona Desert
• Ad-Dahna Desert
• Ad-Dahna desert
• Africa
• Agriculture
• Akshi Desert
• Algerian Desert
• Alvord Desert
• Amargosa Desert
• An Nafud
• Antarctica
• Arab
• Arabian Desert
• Arabian Peninsula
• Arabic language
• Aral Karakum
• Aralkum
• Arctic
• Asia
• Atacama Desert
• Badain Jaran Desert
• Bardenas Reales
• Bayuda Desert
• Bedouin
• Betpak-Dala
• Biodiversity
• Biome
• Black Rock Desert
• Blue Desert
• Błędów Desert
• Calligonum comosum
• Calligonum crinitum
• Cancer
• Carcross Desert
• Carson Desert
• Category Deserts
• Chalbi Desert
• Channeled Scablands
• Chihuahuan Desert
• Cholistan Desert
• Cornulaca arabica
• Danakil Desert
• Danthonia forskallii
• Dasht-e Kavir
• Dasht-e Lut
• Dasht-e Naomid
• Dashti Margo
• Deliblatska Peščara
• Depleted uranium
• Desert
• Dipterygium glaucum
• Djurab Desert
• Dolphin
• Driving
• Dugong
• Eastern Desert
• Ecoregion
• Ecosystem
• Ecozone
• Egypt
• Empty Quarter
• Escalante Desert
• Europe
• Farafra, Egypt
• Ferio Desert
• Fish
• Forty Mile Desert
• Gas
• Gazelle
• Gibson Desert
• Gobi Desert
• Great Basin Desert
• Great Sandy Desert
• Ground water
• Gulf War
• Gurbantünggüt Desert
• Habitat destruction
• Hami Desert
• High Desert (Oregon)
• Highlands of Iceland
• Honey badger
• Hunting
• Indus Valley Desert
• Iraq
• Jackal
• Jordan
• Jornada del Muerto
• Judaean Desert
• Kalahari Desert
• Karakum Desert
• Kaʻū Desert
• Kharan Desert
• Khash Desert
• Kumtag Desert
• Kuwait
• Kuwait City
• Kyzyl Kum
• La Guajira Desert
• Lechuguilla Desert
• Libyan Desert
• Limeum arabicum
• List of deserts
• Little Sandy Desert
• Liwa Desert
• Lop Desert
• Maranjab Desert
• Mojave Desert
• Monegros Desert
• Monte Desert
• Moçâmedes Desert
• Namib Desert
• NASA
• NASA World Wind
• NATO
• Natural gas
• Nefud
• Negev
• North America
• Nubian Desert
• Nullarbor Plain
• Nyiri Desert
• Oil
• Oleshky Sands
• Oman
• Ordos Desert
• Oryx
• Overgrazing
• Owami Desert
• Owyhee Desert
• Palearctic
• Patagonian Desert
• Pedirka Desert
• Persian Gulf
• Petroleum
• Phosphate
• Piscinas
• Polar region
• Prosopis cineraria
• Protected areas
• Qaidam Basin
• Qatar
• Quicksand
• Ramlat al-Sab`atayn
• Rangipo Desert
• Red Desert (Wyoming)
• Registan Desert
• Richtersveld
• Rub' al Khali
• Rub' al-Khali
• Ryn Desert
• Sahara
• Sand
• Sand cat
• Sand dune
• Sand gazelle
• Saudi Arabia
• Sea turtle
• Sechura Desert
• Sedimentary basin
• Sevier Desert
• Shrimp
• Simpson Desert
• Smoke Creek Desert
• Sonoran Desert
• South America
• Spiny-tailed lizard
• Stranja Sahara
• Striped hyaena
• Striped hyena
• Strzelecki Desert
• Sturt Stony Desert
• Sulfur
• Syrian Desert
• Tabernas Desert
• Taklamakan Desert
• Tanami Desert
• Tatacoa Desert
• Template Deserts
• Tengger Desert
• Thal Desert
• Thar Desert
• Tihamah
• Tirari Desert
• Tule Desert (Nevada)
• Tuwaiq
• Ténéré
• Umm al Samim
• United Arab Emirates
• Ustyurt Plateau
• Wahiba Sands
• War
• Water contamination
• Western Asia
• Whale
• White Desert
• White oryx
• Yemen
• Yp Desert
• Yuha Desert
• Yuma Desert
• 
  

• 
  Abu Dhabi
  Abu Dhabi (Arabic: أبو ظبي‎ Abu Dhabi, Father of Deer) is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western coast. The city proper had an estimated population of 896,800 in 2009.
  Abu Dhabi houses important offices of the federal government, and is the seat for the United Arab Emirates Government and the home for the Abu Dhabi Emiri Family and the President of the UAE from this family. Abu Dhabi has grown to be a cosmopolitan metropolis. Its rapid development and urbanisation, coupled with the relatively high average income of its population, has transformed Abu Dhabi to a larger and advanced metropolis. Today the city is the country's center of political, industrial activities, and a major cultural, and commercial centre due to its position as the capital. Abu Dhabi alone generated 56.7% of the GDP of the United Arab Emirates in 2008.
  
  wn.com/Abu_Dhabi
• 
  Accona Desert
  The Accona Desert (Italian: Deserto di Accona) is a semi-arid area in Tuscany, Italy, in the center of the so-called Crete senesi, near the comune of Asciano. It is characterized by calanques and dome-shaped formations locally known as biancane (deriving from Italian bianco, white, due to their light shade).
  Due to yearly rain amounting to no more than 600 mm (24 in), cultivations take advantage of a large irrigation system.
  The desert houses the medieval abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore.
  
  
  Coordinates: 43°11′44.19″N 11°34′22.43″E / 43.1956083°N 11.5728972°E / 43.1956083; 11.5728972
  
  
  
  wn.com/Accona_Desert
• 
  Amargosa Desert
  The Amargosa Desert is located in Nye County in western Nevada, United States, along the California–Nevada border. It is largely coincident with the geographic Amargosa Valley.
  The desert is named after the Amargosa River, so-named for the Spanish word for bitter because of the bitter taste of the water.
  The Amargosa Desert lies at an elevation of about 2,600 to 2,750 feet (790 to 840 m), and includes the community of Amargosa Valley, Nevada, (formerly Lathrop Wells), which lies at the southern end of the desert.
  The desert lies between the Funeral Mountains and Death Valley to the west, and Yucca Mountain and the Nellis Air Force Range to the east.
  The Amargosa Desert is an arid desert habitat and an ecotone between the northern Great Basin and southern Mojave Desert ecosystems and biogeography regions. The seasonal Amargosa River course runs through the desert, with the rare Shoshone pupfish in nearby Amargosa Pupfish Station of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
  
  
  Coordinates: 36°30′N 116°30′W / 36.5°N 116.5°W / 36.5; -116.5
  
  wn.com/Amargosa_Desert
• 
  Antarctica
  Antarctica
  
  This map uses an orthographic projection, near-polar aspect. The South Pole is near the center, where longitudinal lines converge.
  Antarctica (ⁱ/æntˈɑrtɨkə/ or /ænˈtɑːktɨkə/) is Earth's southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km² (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages at least 1 mile (1.6 km) in thickness.
  Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is considered a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 inches) along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89 °C (−129 °F). There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Only cold-adapted organisms survive there, including many types of algae, animals (for example mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades), bacteria, fungi, plants, and protista. Vegetation where it occurs is tundra.
  
  wn.com/Antarctica
• 
  Arabian Peninsula
  The Arabian Peninsula (Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-jazīrat al-ʻarabīya or جزيرة العرب Ǧazīrat al 'Arab‎) is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km² (1,250,000 mi²). The area is an important part of the Asian continent and plays a critical geopolitical role of the Middle East and Arab World due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas. The peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56-23 million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the west, the Persian Gulf to the northeast, and the Indian Ocean to the southeast.
  The Arabian Peninsula is located in the Asia continent and bounded by (clockwise) the Persian Gulf on the northeast, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman on the east, the Arabian Sea on the southeast and south, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Bab-el-Mandeb strait on the southwest, and the Red Sea on the southwest and west. The northern portion of the peninsula merges with the Syrian Desert with no clear border line, although the northern boundary of the Arabian Peninsula is generally considered to be the northern borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
  
  wn.com/Arabian_Peninsula
• 
  Aralkum
  Aralkum is the name given to the new desert that has appeared on the seabed once occupied by the Aral Sea. It lies to the south and east of what remains of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
  While the level of the Aral Sea has fluctuated over its existence, the most recent level drop was caused by the former Soviet Union building massive irrigation projects in the region. The consequent severely reduced inflow subsequently caused the water level in the Aral Sea to drop. While the North Aral Sea is presently rising thanks to a dike, the South Aral Sea is still^[when?] dropping, thus expanding the size of the desert.
  The sands of the Aralkum are made up of a salt-marsh consisting of finely-dispersed sea depositions and remnants of mineral deposits, washed away from irrigated fields. The dusts which originate from it contain pollutants. The desert's location on a powerful east-west airstream has resulted in pesticides in the dust being found in the blood of penguins in Antarctica. Aral dust has also been found in the glaciers of Greenland, the forests of Norway, and the fields of Russia.
  
  wn.com/Aralkum
• 
  Atacama Desert
  Coordinates: 24°30′S 69°15′W / 24.5°S 69.25°W / -24.5; -69.25
  The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a plateau in South America, covering a 600-mile (1,000 km) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world. The Atacama occupies 40,600 square miles (105,000 km²) in northern Chile, composed mostly of salt basins (salares), sand, and felsic lava flows towards the Andes.
  The Atacama Desert ecoregion, as defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), extends from a few kilometers south of the Peru-Chile border to about 30° south latitude. To the north lies the Peruvian Sechura Desert ecoregion, whilst to the south is the Chilean Matorral ecoregion.
  The National Geographic Society, by contrast, considers the coastal area of southern Peru to be part of the Atacama Desert. It includes in this definition the deserts south of the Ica Region in Peru.
  To the east lies the less arid Central Andean dry puna ecoregion. The drier portion of this ecoregion is located south of the Loa River between the parallel Sierra Vicuña Mackenna and Cordillera Domeyko. To the north of the mentioned river lies the Pampa del Tamarugal.
  
  wn.com/Atacama_Desert
• 
  Badain Jaran Desert
  Coordinates: 40°4′21″N 102°12′36″E / 40.0725°N 102.21°E / 40.0725; 102.21
  The Badain Jaran Desert (Chinese: 巴丹吉林沙漠; pinyin: Bādānjílín Shāmò) is a desert in China which spans the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. It covers an area of 49,000 sq. kilometers (19,000 sq. miles).
  This desert is home to the tallest stationary dunes on Earth. Some of the dunes reach a height of 500 meters (1,600 ft.). The dunes are kept in place in the arid, windy region by an underground water source. Analyses of the ground water indicates that it is snowmelt that flows through fractured rock from mountains hundreds of kilometers away.
  The desert also features over 100 spring-fed lakes that lie between the dunes, some of which are fresh while others are extremely saline. These lakes give the desert its name which is Mongolian for "mysterious lakes". It is also crossed by one river, the Ruo Shui ("weak water"), which has formed a great alluvial plain in the desert.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Badain_Jaran_Desert
• 
  Bardenas Reales
  The Bárdenas Reales is a semi-desert natural region, or badlands, of some 42,000 hectares (100,000 acres) in southeast Navarre (Spain). The soils are made up of clay, chalk and sandstone and have been eroded by water and wind creating surprising shapes, canyons, plateaus, tabular structures and isolated hills, called seamounts. Bárdenas lacks urban areas, vegetation is scarce and the many streams that cross the territory have a markedly seasonal flow, staying dry most of the year.
  The Bárdenas is in the southeast of Navarra, bordering Aragon. It is located in the middle of the depression of the Ebro valley at the foot of the mountains of the Yugo and the Zaragoza region of Cinco Villas. It is 45 km (28 mi) from north to south and 24 km (15 mi) east-west and at an altitude ranging between 280 and 659 m (920 and 2,162 ft). Its area is 41,845 hectares (103,400 acres). Limited to sixteen municipalities, of which thirteen are in Navarre and three in the province of Zaragoza. The Navarrese are Valtierra, Arguedas, Carcastillo, Santacara, Mélida, Rada, Caparroso, Villafranca, Cadreita, Tudela, Cabanillas, Fustiñana and Buñuel, while the Zaragozan are: Tauste, Ejea de los Caballeros and Sádaba.
  
  wn.com/Bardenas_Reales
• Blue Desert
  Coordinates: 28°38′23″N 34°33′39″E / 28.63972°N 34.56083°E / 28.63972; 34.56083
  The Blue Desert is an area of the Sinai Desert near the Red Sea resort of Dahab, where a number of rocks are painted blue.
  This piece of art was created in 1980 when, following the 1979 Egyptian–Israeli Peace Treaty Belgian artist Jean Verame visited Sinai to paint a line of peace. Verame gained the permission of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and received a grant of ten tons of paint from the United Nations.
  Jean Verame later created a similar installation near the village of Tafraout in southern Morocco.
  
  wn.com/Blue_Desert
• 
  Błędów Desert
  Błędów Desert (Polish: Pustynia Błędowska) is an area of sands between Błędów (part of Dąbrowa Górnicza in Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union) and the village of Klucze in Poland. The area lies mainly on the Silesian Highlands in the Silesian Voivodeship. It occupies an area of 32 km² (12 sq mi).
  The Bledowska Sands are the largest (in Central Europe) accumulation of loose sand away from any sea, deposited thousands of years ago by a melting glacier.
  During the Second World War, the area was used by the German Afrika Korps for training and testing equipment before deployment in Africa.
  
  
  Coordinates: 50°21′22″N 19°31′03″E / 50.35617°N 19.51762°E / 50.35617; 19.51762
  
  wn.com/Błędów_Desert
• Chalbi Desert
  The Chalbi Desert is a small desert in northern Kenya near the border with Ethiopia. The desert is located east of Lake Turkana, the largest permanent desert lake in the world.^{[citation needed]} The settlement of North Horr lies in the desert. Marsabit is the closest major city.
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Chalbi_Desert
• 
  Channeled Scablands
  The Channeled Scablands are a unique geological erosion feature in the U.S. state of Washington. They were created by the cataclysmic Missoula Floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Plateau during the Pleistocene epoch. Geologist J Harlen Bretz coined the term in a series of papers in the 1920s. Debate over the origin of the Scablands raged for four decades and is one of the great debates in the history of earth science. The Scablands are also important to planetary scientists as perhaps the best terrestrial analog for the Martian outflow channels.
  River valleys formed by erosion normally have a 'V' cross section, and glaciers leave a 'U' cross section. The Channeled Scablands have a rectangular cross section and are spread over immense areas of eastern Washington. They exhibit a unique drainage pattern that appears to have an entrance in the northeast and an exit in the southwest. The eroded channels also show an anastomosing, or braided, appearance. There are also immense potholes and ripple marks, much larger than those found on ordinary rivers. When first studied, no known theories could explain the origin of these features.
  
  wn.com/Channeled_Scablands
• 
  Cholistan Desert
  Cholistan Desert (Urdu, Saraiki:صحرائے چولستان), also locally known as Rohi (روہی) sprawls thirty kilometers from Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan and covers an area of 26,300 km². It adjoins the Thar Desert extending over to Sindh and into India.
  The word Cholistan is derived from the Turkish word Chol, which means Desert. Cholistan thus means Land of the Desert. The people of Cholistan lead a semi-nomadic life, moving from one place to another in search of water and fodder for their animals. The dry bed of the Hakra River runs through the area, along which many settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization have been found.
  The Desert also has an Annual Jeep Rally, known as Cholistan Desert Jeep Rally. It is the biggest motor sports event in Pakistan.
  The language of Cholistan also reflects a number of features of its historical and geographical background. The Saraiki language is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda languages group, and is spoken in Cholistan as well as in a large part of central Pakistan. Though once a considered a dialect of Punjabi, it is considered a separate language now. One of the chief authors in the Saraiki language is Khwaja Ghulam Farid, a polyglot Sufi poet, who helped develop Saraiki's poetics. The Saraiki community diffused when Saraiki-speaking Hindus migrated to the neighboring Indian states of Bikaner and Jaisalmer during Partition and were replaced by Urdu-speaking Muslim refugees from India. However, since the majority of Urdu-speakers settled in the cities and few settled in rural Cholistan, the countryside maintains a strong Saraiki community.
  
  wn.com/Cholistan_Desert
• 
  Danakil Desert
  The Danakil Desert lies in the Afar Triangle. It extends into the north-east of Ethiopia, the south of Eritrea and into much of Djibouti. It is the homeland of the Afar people who are known for their ability to withstand the extremes and survive as they have done for hundreds of years. It is known for its extreme heat and inhospitability. The deepest point in the desert lies up to 100 m below sea level in the Danakil Depression. The Danakil Desert's main industry is salt mining that is still cut by hand and loaded onto camels for transport and it is not uncommon to see caravans of camels making the slow journey through the desert. It is also home to wildlife, including African Wild Asses.
  Many volcanoes exist in the region, including Erta Ale and the Dabbahu Volcano. It was named by National Geographic as the "Cruelest Place on Earth". The area was subject to a BBC documentary by a BBC correspondent Kate Humble
  Coordinates: 14°14′30″N 40°18′00″E / 14.2417°N 40.3°E / 14.2417; 40.3
  
  wn.com/Danakil_Desert
• 
  Deliblatska Peščara
  Deliblatska Peščara (Serbian Cyrillic: Делиблатска Пешчара) or Deliblato Sand is a large sand area situated in the Vojvodina province, Serbia. It is located in southern Banat (mostly in the South Banat District, with a smaller part in the Central Banat District). The sand is named after the village of Deliblato, which is situated in the municipality of Kovin.
  Deliblatska Peščara is the largest sandy terrain in Europe, once part of a vast prehistoric desert. It originated from the withdrawal of the Pannonian Sea. Due to its forest and surroundings, it was proclaimed to be the Special Nature Reserve.
  Coordinates: 44°51′1.31″N 21°5′33.42″E / 44.8503639°N 21.0926167°E / 44.8503639; 21.0926167
  
  wn.com/Deliblatska_Peščara
• 
  Eastern Desert
  
  
  The Eastern Desert is the section of Sahara Desert east of the Nile River, between the river and the Red Sea. It extends from Egypt in the north to Eritrea in the south, and also comprises parts of Sudan and Ethiopia.
  The Eastern Desert's main geographic features are the western Red Sea coastline - wth the "Red Sea Riviera" - and the Eastern Desert mountain range that runs along the coast, the highest peak of which is Shaiyb al-Banat. Other notable ecological areas are Wadi Gamal National Park and Gebel Elba. The Eastern Desert is a popular setting for safaris and other excursions.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Eastern_Desert
• 
  Egypt
  Egypt ⁱ/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic:  جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
  Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
  
  wn.com/Egypt
• 
  Gibson Desert
  The Gibson Desert covers a large dry area in the state of Western Australia and is still largely in an almost "pristine" state. It is about 155,000 square kilometres (60,000 square miles) in size, making it the 5th largest desert in Australia, after the Great Sandy, Great Victoria, Tanami and Simpson deserts.
  The Gibson Desert is located on the central east Sweden plateau between the saline Lake Disappointment and Lake Macdonald along the Tropic of Capricorn, south of the Great Sandy Desert, east of the Little Sandy Desert, and north of the Great Victoria Desert. The altitude rises to just above 500 meters in places. As noted by early Australian explorers such as Ernest Giles large portions of the desert are characterized by gravel-covered terrains covered in thin desert grasses and it also contains extensive areas of undulating red sand plains and dunefields, low rocky/gravelly ridges and substantial upland portions with a high degree of laterite formation. The sandy soil of the lateritic buckshot plains is rich in iron. Several isolated salt-water lakes occur in the centre of the region and to the southwest a system of small lakes follow paleo-drainage features. Groundwater sources include portions of the Officer Basin and Canning Basin.
  
  wn.com/Gibson_Desert
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  Gobi Desert
  The Gobi (Mongolian: Говь, Govi, "semidesert"; Chinese: 戈壁; pinyin: Gēbì) is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the southwest, and by the North China Plain to the southeast. The Gobi is most notable in history as part of the great Mongol Empire, and as the location of several important cities along the Silk Road.
  The Gobi is made up of several distinct ecological and geographic regions based on variations in climate and topography. One is the Eastern Gobi desert steppe Ecoregion, a Palearctic ecoregion in the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, home to the Bactrian camel and various other animals.. It is a rain shadow desert formed by the Himalaya range blocking rain-carrying clouds from reaching the Gobi from the Indian Ocean.
  The Gobi measures over 1,610 km (1,000 mi) from southwest to northeast and 800 km (500 mi) from north to south. The desert is widest in the west, along the line joining the Lake Bosten and the Lop Nor (87°-89° east). It occupies an arc of land 1,295,000 km² (500,002 sq mi) in area as of 2007, making it the fifth largest in the world^{[clarification needed]} and Asia's largest. Much of the Gobi is not sandy but is covered with bare rock.
  
  wn.com/Gobi_Desert
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  Great Sandy Desert
  The Great Sandy Desert is a desert located in the North West of Western Australia straddling the Pilbara and southern Kimberley regions. It is the second largest desert in Australia after the Great Victoria Desert and encompasses an area of 284,993 square kilometres (110,036 sq mi) The Gibson Desert lies to the south and the Tanami Desert lies to the East of the Great Sandy Desert.
  The Great Sandy Desert contains large Ergs, often consisting of longitudinal dunes. The Wolfe Creek meteorite impact crater is located in the northeast.
  The region is sparsely populated. The main populations consist of Indigenous Australian communities and mining centers. The aboriginal people of the desert fall into two main groups: the Martu in the west and the Pintupi in the east. Linguistically, they are speakers of multiple Western Desert Languages. Many of these indigenous people were forcibly removed from their lands during the 20th century and relocated to settlements such as Papunya in the Northern Territory. In recent years,^[when?] some of the original inhabitants have returned.^{[citation needed]} Young Indigenous adults from the Great Sandy Desert region travel to and work in the Wilurarra Creative programs to maintain and develop their culture.
  
  wn.com/Great_Sandy_Desert
• Indus Valley Desert
  The Indus Valley Desert is an almost uninhabited desert ecoregion of northern Pakistan.
  The Indus Valley desert covers an area of 19,500 square kilometers (7,500 sq mi) in northwestern Punjab Province between the Chenab and Indus rivers. The Indus Valley Desert is drier and less hospitable than the Northwestern thorn scrub forests that surround it with temperatures ranging from freezing in winter to extremely hot (more than 45°)in summer with only 600-800mm of rainfall per year.
  The desert vegatation is quite varied due to the variety of temperatures with Prosopis shrubs being the characteristic species.
  The desert is home to five large mammals: Wolf, hyena, caracal, leopard and the Urial (Ovis orientalis punjabensis) along with many rodents and other mammals. Meanwhile the 190 species of bird in the desert include the Red-necked Falcon.
  Like the nearby Thar Desert the Indus Valley desert has little farming or grazing due to its hard climate and therefore the natural habitats are almost intact. However hunting still goes on and is a threat to caracals, wolves and other mammals.
  
  wn.com/Indus_Valley_Desert
• 
  Iraq
  Iraq (/ɪˈræk/ or ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːk/; Arabic: العراق‎ al-‘Irāq); officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic:  جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq), is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.
  Iraq borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (36 mi) on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country.
  Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.
  Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' (Land between the rivers) and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is often referred to as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing, law and the wheel. At different periods in its history, Iraq was the center of the indigenous Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid empires. It was also part of the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires, and under British control as a League of Nations mandate.
  
  wn.com/Iraq
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  Jordan
  Jordan ( /ˈdʒɔr.dən/;Arabic: اَلأُرْدُنّ, Al-'Urdunn), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: اَلمَمْلَكَة اَلأُرْدُنِيَّة اَلهَاشِمِيَّة), Al-Mamlakah Al-Urdaniyyah Al-Hashimiyyah) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea with the latter. Jordan's only port is at its south-western tip, at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is shared with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Over half of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the western part of Jordan is arable land and forests. Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman. According to the CIA World Factbook, Jordan has the second highest life expectancy in the Middle East, after Israel. The average life expectancy is one position behind the United Kingdom, although the age remains exactly the same (80.05 years).
  The precursor to modern Jordan was founded in 1921 as the Hashemite Emirate, and it was recognized by the League of Nations as a state under the British mandate in 1922 known as The Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. After capturing the West Bank area of Cisjordan during the 1948–49 war with Israel, Abdullah I took the title King of Jordan and Palestine, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949.
  
  wn.com/Jordan
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  Jornada del Muerto
  The Jornada del Muerto (Spanish for "single day's journey of the dead man" hence "route of the dead man") in the U.S. state of New Mexico was the name given by the Spanish conquistadors to the Jornada del Muerto Desert basin, and the particularly dry 100-mile (160 km) stretch of a route through it.
  The trail led northward from central Spanish colonial New Spain, present-day Mexico, to the farthest reaches of the viceroyalty in northern Nuevo México Province. The route later became El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
  The Jornada del Muerto Desert ecoregion, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, is an expansive and long stretch of flat desert landforms and xeric habitat about 100 miles (160 km) from north to south. The desert runs between: the Oscura Mountains and San Andres Mountains on the east; and the Fra Cristóbal Range and Caballo Mountains on the west. The western mountains block access to the Rio Grande, the most reliable water source in the region.
  The Jornada del Muerto Desert remains almost entirely uninhabited and undeveloped to the present day. Located just to the east of the southernmost region of the desert is the Jornada Basin LTER station, used for study of desert ecology, land management, plant physiology, and related topics.
  
  wn.com/Jornada_del_Muerto
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  Judaean Desert
  Coordinates: 31°41′56″N 35°18′23″E / 31.69889°N 35.30639°E / 31.69889; 35.30639
  
  The Judaean Desert (Hebrew: מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה‎, Midbar Yehuda - both Desert of Judah or Judaean Desert) is a desert in Israel and the West Bank that lies east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. It stretches from the northeastern Negev to the east of Beit El, and is marked by terraces with escarpments. It ends in a steep escarpment dropping to the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley. The Judaean Desert is crossed by numerous wādis from northeast to southeast, and has many nahals, most of them deep, from 1,200 feet in the west to 600 feet in the east. Judaean Desert is an area with a special morphological structure along the east of the Judaean Mountains.
  It is sometimes known as יְשִׁימוֹן‎, Yeshimon - desert, wildland, or yet Wilderness of Judah or Wilderness of Judaea, among others.
  The Judaean desert lies east of Jerusalem and descends to the Dead Sea. Rainfall in the Judaea region varies from 400–500 millimetres (16–20 in) in the western hills, rising to 600 millimetres (24 in) around western Jerusalem (in central Judaea), falling back to 400 millimetres (16 in) in eastern Jerusalem and dropping to around 100mm in the eastern parts, due to a rainshadow effect. The climate ranges from Mediterranean in the west and desert climate in the east, with a strip of steppe climate in the middle. Major urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Gush Etzion, Jericho and Hevron.
  
  wn.com/Judaean_Desert
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  Kalahari Desert
  The Kalahari Desert (Dorsland in Afrikaans) is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending 900,000 square kilometres (350,000 sq mi), covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa. As semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains, the Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert, such as the Namib Desert to the west. There are small amounts of rainfall and the summer temperature is very high. It usually receives 3–7.5 inches (76–190 mm) of rain per year. The surrounding Kalahari Basin covers over 2,500,000 square kilometres (970,000 sq mi) extending farther into Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, and encroaching into parts of Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The only permanent river, the Okavango, flows into a delta in the northwest, forming marshes that are rich in wildlife. Ancient dry riverbeds—called omuramba—traverse the Central Northern reaches of the Kalahari and provide standing pools of water during the rainy season. Previously havens for wild animals from elephant to giraffe, and for predators such as lion and cheetah, the riverbeds are now mostly grazing spots, though leopard or cheetah can still be found.
  
  wn.com/Kalahari_Desert
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  Karakum Desert
  The Karakum Desert, also spelled Kara-Kum and Gara Gum (“Black Sand”) (Turkmen: Garagum, Russian: Каракумы) is a desert in Central Asia. It occupies about 70 percent, or 350,000 km², of the area of Turkmenistan.
  The population is sparse, with an average of one person per 6.5 km² (one person per 2.5 square miles). Rainfall is equally sparse, where precipitation comes maybe once a decade in some areas.
  Covering much of present day Turkmenistan, the Karakum Desert lies east of the Caspian Sea, with the Aral Sea to the north and the Amu Darya river and the Kyzyl Kum desert to the northeast. In modern times, with the shrinking of the Aral Sea, the extended "Aral Karakum" has appeared on the former seabed, with an estimated area of 15,440 sq mi/40,000 km². Although the level of the Aral Sea has fluctuated over its existence, the most recent level drop was caused by the former Soviet Union building massive irrigation projects in the region. Although the North Aral Sea is currently rising, the South Aral Sea is still dropping, thus expanding the size of the desert.
  
  wn.com/Karakum_Desert
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  Kumtag Desert
  The Kumtag Desert, Kumtagh Desert or Desert of Kum-tag, the king of China in the year BC.1305 (Chinese: 库姆塔格沙漠; pinyin: Kùmǔtǎgé Shāmò Turkish:Kumdağ), literally "sand mountain desert" in Old Turkic language (Kum meaning sand and Tag meaning Mountain), is an arid landform in Northwestern China, which was proclaimed as a national park in the year 2002.
  1. Broad definition: The oval Tarim Basin with its central Taklamakan Desert is bounded on the north, west and south by mountains. On the east side the Kumtag is an unbroken plain about 100 miles from north to south that runs from the Taklamakan to Gansu and Mongolia. Many modern maps do not show a Kumtag in this sense which implies that the usage may be out of date.
  The Kumtag Desert is a section of the Taklamakan Desert which lies east-southeast of the Desert of Lop. It is on the other side of the Kara-koshun and reaches north-eastwards as far as the vicinity of the town of Sa-chow and the lake of Kara-nor, or Kala-chi. It is bordered by Dunhuang in the east, Tian Shan in the north, and with an area of 22,800+ square kilometers. Its southern rim is marked by a labyrinth of hills, dotted in groups and irregular clusters,worn down as it were to mere fragments of their former skeletal structure. Between these and the Altyn-Tagh, intervenes a broad latitudinal valley, seamed with watercourses that come down from the foothills of the Altyn-tagh. Beside these scrubby desert plants of the usual character maintain a precarious existence. Water reaching them in some instances at intervals of years only. This part of the desert has a general slope northwest towards the relative depression of the Kara-koshun. A noticeable feature of the Kum-tagh is the presence of large accumulations of drift-sand, especially along the foot of the crumbling desert ranges, where it rises into dunes sometimes as much as 250 feet (76 m) in height and climbs half-way up the flanks of ranges themselves.
  
  wn.com/Kumtag_Desert
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  Kuwait
  Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait ⁱ/kuːˈweɪt/ (Arabic: دولة الكويت‎, Dawlat al-Kuwayt) is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the Arabic أكوات ākwāt, the plural of كوت kūt, meaning a fortress built near water. The country covers an area of 17,820 square kilometers (6,880 sq mi) and has a population of about 3.5 million.
  Historically, the region was the site of Characene, a major Parthian port for trade between Mesopotamia and India. The Bani Utbah tribe were the first permanent Arab settlers in the region, and laid the foundation of the modern emirate. By the 19th century, Kuwait came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire, and after World War I, it emerged as an independent sheikhdom under the protection of the British Empire. Kuwait's large oil fields were discovered in the late 1930s.
  
  wn.com/Kuwait
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  Kuwait City
  Kuwait City (Arabic: مدينة الكويت, transliteration: Madīnat al-Kuwayt), is the capital of Kuwait. It has a population of 2.38 million in the metropolitan area. Located at the heart of the country on the shore of the Persian Gulf, and containing Kuwait's parliament (Majlis Al-Umma), most governmental offices, the headquarters of most Kuwaiti corporations and banks, it is the political, cultural and economic center of the emirate.
  Kuwait City’s trade and transportation needs are served by Kuwait International Airport, Mina Al-Shuwaik (Shuwaik Port) and Mina Al Ahmadi (Ahmadi Port) 50 kilometers to the south, on the Persian Gulf coast.
  Kuwait City was first settled in the early 18th century by the Al-Sabāh clan, later the ruling family of Kuwait and a branch of the Al-Utūb tribe (that also included the Al-Khalīfah clan, the ruling family of Bahrain), and their leader, Sheikh Sabāh I. Its name may have derived from an earlier abandoned fort located there, called "Kūt" (كوت) – Arabic for a fortress by the sea.
  
  wn.com/Kuwait_City
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  La Guajira Desert
  La Guajira Desert is located in the northernmost part of Colombia, 610 km (380 mi) north of Bogota, in the La Guajira Department, covering most of La Guajira Peninsula including Venezuelan territory. The area holds immense coal reserves, exploited in a zone known as El Cerrejon. The area is also home to the indigenous Wayuu people and a variety of desert flora and fauna.
  The National Natural Park of Macuira is located in the La Guajira Desert and is a tropical oasis. It has been a national park since 1977. The park covers 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres) in La Guiajira’s only mountain chain, and ranges in altitude from 0 to 450 metres (1,480 ft). It has a warm climate of about 27 °C (81 °F).
  Coordinates: 12°04′18″N 71°35′52″W / 12.07167°N 71.59778°W / 12.07167; -71.59778
  
  wn.com/La_Guajira_Desert
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  Lechuguilla Desert
  The Lechuguilla Desert is a small desert located in southwestern Arizona near the U.S.-Mexico border. It is considered to be part of the Lower Colorado Valley region of the Sonoran Desert. It lies in a north-south direction between the Gila Mountains and The Cabeza Prieta Mountains, and almost entirely in the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. The desert is named after the Lechuguilla plant, known scientifically as Agave lecheguilla. The desert is also on the north border of the Gran Desierto de Altar of Sonora, Mexico.
  The Lechuguilla Desert lies to the east, northeast of the connected ranges, Gila Mountains, north and the Tinajas Altas Mountains, which extend southeast into north Sonora. To the west and southwest of the two ranges, lies the Yuma Desert. The Tule Desert (Arizona) lies east of the Lechuguilla, and the Cabeza Prieta Mountains; all three deserts are at the northwest perimeter of the great desert, the Gran Desierto de Altar, and the Pinacate Volcanic field region.
  
  
  
  
  Coordinates: 32°25′05″N 113°59′00″W / 32.4181104°N 113.9832679°W / 32.4181104; -113.9832679
  
  wn.com/Lechuguilla_Desert
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  Libyan Desert
  The Libyan Desert covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 km², it extends approximately 1100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle. Like most of the Sahara, this desert is primarily sand and hamada or stony plain.
  Sand plains, dunes, ridges and some depressions (basins) typify the endorheic region, with no rivers draining into or out of the desert. The Gilf Kebir plateau reaches an altitude of just over 1000 m, and along with the nearby massif of Jebel Uweinat is an exception to the uninterrupted territory of basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded sediments, forming a massive sand plain, low plateaus and dunes.
  The desert features a striking diversity of landscapes including mountains such as Jebel Uweinat (1980 m), the Gilf Kebir plateau, and sand seas (see below). The Libyan Desert is barely populated apart from the modern settlements at oases of the lower Cyrenaica region in southeastern Libya. The indigenous population is Berber. In most of Upper Egypt, the desert is close to the Nile River, with a seasonal flood plain only a few kilometers wide between river and desert.
  
  wn.com/Libyan_Desert
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  Little Sandy Desert
  The Little Sandy Desert is a desert located in Western Australia south of the Great Sandy Desert and west of the Gibson Desert. It is to the east of Great Northern Highway south of Newman and approximately 200 kilometres north of Wiluna. To the north the nearest large area identifiable is the Karlamilyi National Park.
  It is named because it is relatively close and similar to the Great Sandy Desert, but is much smaller. Its landforms, fauna and flora, etc., are all similar to the Great Sandy Desert. Both deserts are crossed by the Canning Stock Route.
  It is one of Western Australia's Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) regions.
  Indigenous groups that have identified with the region include the Mandildjara
  Coordinates: 25°16′S 121°52′E / 25.26°S 121.86°E / -25.26; 121.86
  
  
  
  wn.com/Little_Sandy_Desert
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  Lop Desert
  The Lop Desert or Lop Nur or Lop Nor, is a desert extending from Korla eastwards along the foot of the Kuruktagh to the formerly terminal Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. It is an almost perfectly horizontal expanse. Lake Bosten in the northwest lies at an altitude of 1,030 m to 1,040 m (3,380 to 3,410 ft), while the Lop Nur in the southeast is only 250 m lower.
  In the past Lop Nur was a huge marsh in the eastern part of Xinjiang. When the Tarim River dried up in the late 20th century, Lop Nur became an infertile desert, although there are still occasional soft, wet riverbeds to be found. The extreme weather and ever moving sand dunes have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. Hein returned later, traving by boat up the rivers to the lake. He saw a multitude of wildlife. However, the building of dams by the Chinese garrisons have blocked the water from the rivers feeding in to Lop Nor and it is now primarily salt flats.
  Now the region is a broad, unbroken expanses of clay intermingled with sand. The clay, mostly of a yellow or yellow-grey color, is hard and thickly sprinkled with fine gravel. There are benches, flattened ridges and tabular masses of consolidated clay (yardangs) that are in a distinctly defined laminae, three stories being sometimes superimposed one upon the other, while their vertical faces are abraded, and often undercut, by the wind. The formations themselves are separated by parallel gullies or wind furrows, 6 to 20 feet deep, all sculptured in the direction of the prevailing northeast to southwest wind. There is no drifting sand or sand dunes, except in the south towards the outlying foothills of the Altyn-Tagh.
  
  wn.com/Lop_Desert
• Monegros Desert
  wn.com/Monegros_Desert
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  Namib Desert
  The Namib is a coastal desert in southern Africa. The name Namib is of Nama origin and means "vast place". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa. The Namib's northernmost portion, which extends 450 kilometres (280 mi) from the Angola-Namibia border, is known as Moçâmedes Desert, while its southern portion approaches the neighboring Kalahari Desert. From the Atlantic coast eastward, the Namib gradually ascends in elevation, reaching up to 200 kilometres (120 mi) inland to the foot of the Great Escarpment. Annual precipitation ranges from 2 millimetres (0.079 in) in the most arid regions to 200 millimetres (7.9 in) at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa. Having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for roughly 80–55 million years, the Namib is also the oldest desert in the world.
  
  wn.com/Namib_Desert
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  NASA
  Coordinates: 38°52′59″N 77°0′59″W / 38.88306°N 77.01639°W / 38.88306; -77.01639
  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006, NASA's mission statement has been to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research." On September 14, 2011, NASA announced that it had selected the design of a new Space Launch System that it said would take the agency's astronauts farther into space than ever before and provide the cornerstone for future human space exploration efforts by the U.S.
  NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The agency became operational on October 1, 1958. U.S. space exploration efforts have since been led by NASA, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program (LSP) which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches.
  
  wn.com/NASA
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  NATO
  Coordinates: 50°52′34.16″N 4°25′19.24″E / 50.8761556°N 4.4220111°E / 50.8761556; 4.4220111
  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.
  For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966.
  
  wn.com/NATO
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  Negev
  The Negev (Hebrew: נֶּגֶב‎‎, Tiberian vocalization: Néḡeḇ; Arabic: النقب‎ al-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. 185,000), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city of Eilat. It contains several development towns, including Dimona, Arad and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as a number of small Bedouin cities, including Rahat and Tel as-Sabi. There are also several kibbutzim, including Revivim and Sde Boker; the latter became the home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, after his retirement from politics.
  The desert is home to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose faculties include the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies, both located on the Midreshet Ben-Gurion campus adjacent to Sde Boker.
  The origin of the word negev is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'. In the Bible the word Negev is also used for the direction 'south'. In Arabic, the Negev is known as al-Naqab, although it was created with the establishment of the Egypt-Palestine frontier in the 19th century and has no single traditional Arabic name. During the British Mandate it was called Beersheba sub-district.
  
  wn.com/Negev
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  Nubian Desert
  Coordinates: 20°30′N 33°00′E / 20.5°N 33°E / 20.5; 33
  The Nubian Desert (Arabic: صحراء النوبة‎, Şaḩrā’ an Nūbyah) is in the eastern region of the Sahara Desert, spanning approximately 400,000 km² of northeastern Sudan between the Nile and the Red Sea. The arid region, a largely sandstone plateau, has lots of wadis flowing towards the Nile. There is virtually no rainfall in the Nubian, and there are no oases. The traditional inhabitants of the area are the Nubians.
  The world's earliest known archaeoastronomical megalith was erected in Nabta Playa in the Nubian Desert in southern Egypt. The Nubian Desert is known for turtles crossing its path.
  The town of Abidiya is located nearby.
  This desert is the only habitat for the critically endangered palm Medemia argun, which only appears rarely in some oases in the desert.
  On October 7, 2008 the meteoroid 2008 TC3 exploded above the Nubian Desert.
  
  wn.com/Nubian_Desert
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  Nyiri Desert
  Nyiri Desert, also called The Nyika or Tarudesert, is a desert in southern Kenya. It is located east of Lake Magadi and between Amboseli, Tsavo West and Nairobi National Parks. High proportion of Kajiado District's land area is of Nyiri Desert. Its aridity is caused by rain shadow of the Mount Kilimanjaro.
  Coordinates: 2°23′48″S 37°15′38″E / 2.39667°S 37.26056°E / -2.39667; 37.26056
  
  wn.com/Nyiri_Desert
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  Oleshky Sands
  Oleshky Sands (Ukrainian: Олешківські піски) is the largest expanse of sand in Ukraine. It is situated inland from the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea and consists of sand dunes or kuchuhury (locally), which reach a height of five meters. Some sparse vegetation can be located across the sands.
  The Olehsky Desert is located in Tsiurupynsk Raion, Kherson Oblast, 30 km (~20 mi) east of Kherson. The previous name of Tsiurupynsk was Oleshky. Before the Russian annexation of the Crimean Khanate at the end of the XVIII, the territory belonged to the nomad Nogai Hordes, particularly the Djambuilut Horde. No detail historical information about the region has survived to our days.
  The closest populated settlement is seven kilometers away (~4.5 mi). In Soviet times the sands were used as an Air Force bombing range for pilots of the Warsaw Pact alliance. To this day there is a possibility of finding some unexploded ordnance.
  Due to its temperature and the amount of precipitation these sands sometimes are qualified as a semi-desert. Oleshky Sands are 15 km in diameter (~10 mi) and they are surrounded by a very dense forest planted to prevent dunes moving. Due to its density, the forest often catches fire. Although a relatively small sandy steppe, the Oleshky Sands have sandstorms. They occur due to the type of the sand in the area as it is very fine and is easily get picked up by a wind. The intensity of the sandstorms is rather weak. In the Oleshky sands at the depth of 300–400 m (~1000 ft) there is an underground lake, which forms an essential part of the local environment.
  
  wn.com/Oleshky_Sands
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  Oman
  Oman (ⁱ/oʊˈmɑːn/ oh-MAAN; Arabic: عمان‎ ʻUmān), officially called the Sultanate of Oman (Arabic: سلطنة عُمان‎ Salṭanat ʻUmān), is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam enclaves are surrounded by the UAE on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman forming Musandam's coastal boundaries.
  For a period, Oman was a moderate regional power, formerly having a sultanate extending across the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, and modern day Pakistan, and far south to Zanzibar on the coat of south-east Africa. Over time, as its power declined, the sultanate came under heavy influence from the United Kingdom, though Oman was never formally part of the British Empire, or a British protectorate. The Omani royal family claim that Oman has been ruled by the Al Said dynasty since 1744, although without substantial proof. Oman has long-standing military and political ties with the United Kingdom and the United States, although it maintains an independent foreign policy.
  
  wn.com/Oman
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  Ordos Desert
  The Ordos Desert, also known as the Mu Us Desert, (simplified Chinese: 鄂尔多斯沙漠; traditional Chinese: 鄂爾多斯沙漠; pinyin: È'ěrduōsī Shāmò) is a desert and steppe region lying on a plateau in the south of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China (centered ca. 39°N 109°E / 39°N 109°E / 39; 109). The soil of the Ordos is a mixture of clay and sand and, as a result, is poorly suited for agriculture. It extends over an area of approximately 90,650 km². It comprises two large deserts: the 7th largest desert in China, the Kubuqi Desert (库布其沙漠/庫布齊沙漠; pinyin: Kùbùqí Shāmò) in the north, and the 8th largest desert in China, the Maowusu Desert (毛乌素沙漠/毛烏素沙漠; pinyin: Máowūsù Shāmò), in the south.
  The Ordos Desert is almost completely encircled by the Great Bend of the Yellow River (Ordos Loop) in the west, north, and east. Mountain ranges separate the Ordos from the Gobi Desert north and east of the Yellow River. The mountain chains separating the Ordos from the central Gobi in the north of the great bend of the Yellow River are: the Kara-naryn-ula, the Sheitenula, and the Yin Mountains, which link on to the south end of the Greater Khingan Mountains. In the south and east, the Great Wall of China separates the Ordos from fertile loess lands. The Ordos covers the southern section of the Inner Mongolia, an Autonomous Region of China, the Ningxia, an Autonomous Entity of China, and the Chinese Provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu.
  
  wn.com/Ordos_Desert
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  Owyhee Desert
  The Owyhee Desert ecoregion, within the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, is in the Northwestern United States. The Owyhee Uplands Bypass passes through the desert.
  An arid region of canyons, volcanic rock, sagebrush and grass makes up the ~9,375 sq mi (24,280 km²) Owyhee Desert.
  The desert is in northern Nevada, southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon. It is located on the south edge of the Columbia Plateau southwest of Boise, Idaho, stretching east from the Santa Rosa Range. It has a mean elevation of approximately 5,300 ft (1,600 m). The Owyhee Desert is primarily drained by the tributaries of the Bruneau River and Owyhee Rivers, which then flow into the Snake River.
  Most of the land in the desert is owned by the federal government and managed by the Bureau of Land Management. It is largely used as ranchland, resulting in ongoing controversies regarding federal mismanagement and environmental degradation resulting from overgrazing.^[who?]
  In 1999, the Desert Group submitted an alternative for Owyhee resource management.
  
  wn.com/Owyhee_Desert
• 
  Patagonian Desert
  The Patagonian Desert, also known as the Patagonia Desert or the Patagonian Steppe, is the largest desert in Argentina and is the 7th largest desert in the world by area, occupying 673,000 square kilometers (260,000 mi²). It is located primarily in Argentina with small parts in Chile and is bounded by the Andes, to its west, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, in the region of Patagonia, southern Argentina. To the north the desert grades into the semi-arid Cuyo Region and the Dry and Humid Pampas. The central parts of the steppe are dominated by shrubby and herbaceous plant species albeit to the west, where precipitation is higher, bushes are replaced by grasses. Topographically the deserts consist of alternating tablelands and massifs dissected by river valleys and canyons. The more western parts of the steppe host lakes of glacial origin and grades into barren mountains or cold temperate forests along valleys.
  Inhabited by hunter-gatherers since Pre-Hispanic times the desert faced in the 19th century migration of Mapuches, Chileans, Argentines, Welshs and other European peoples transforming it from a conflictive borderland zone to an integral part of Argentina with cattle, sheep and horse husbandry being the primary land use.
  
  wn.com/Patagonian_Desert
• Pedirka Desert
  The Pedirka Desert is an Australian desert, located about 100 kilometres (62 mi) north-west of Oodnadatta and 250 kilometres (160 mi) north-east of Coober Pedy in South Australia. Mount Deane and Witjira National Park are just to the north.
  The desert is relatively small, occupying about 1,250 square kilometres (480 sq mi).
  Coordinates: 26°54′S 134°54′E / 26.9°S 134.9°E / -26.9; 134.9
  
  
  
  wn.com/Pedirka_Desert
• 
  Persian Gulf
  The Persian Gulf is located in Western Asia between Iran (Persia) and the Arabian Peninsula. It is an extension of the Indian Ocean.
  The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers. In 1991, the Persian Gulf again was the background for what was called the "Persian Gulf War" or the "Gulf War" when Iraq invaded Kuwait and was subsequently pushed back, despite the fact that this conflict was primarily a land conflict.
  The Persian Gulf has many good fishing grounds, extensive coral reefs, and abundant pearl oysters, but its ecology has come under pressure from industrialization, and in particular, oil and petroleum spillages during wars in the region.
  Historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf or simply The Gulf by most Arab states, although neither of the latter two terms are recognized internationally. The name Gulf of Iran (Persian Gulf) is used by the International Hydrographic Organization.
  
  wn.com/Persian_Gulf
• 
  Piscinas
  Piscinas is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Carbonia-Iglesias in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 40 km southwest of Cagliari and about 15 km southeast of Carbonia, in the Sulcis-Iglesiente traditional subregion.
  Piscinas borders the following municipalities: Giba, Masainas, Santadi, Teulada, Tratalias, Villaperuccio.
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Piscinas
• 
  Qaidam Basin
  Qaidam Basin, also spelled Tsaidam (from Mongolian: Цайдам, "salt marsh" or "wide valley"; simplified Chinese: 柴达木盆地; traditional Chinese: 柴達木盆地; pinyin: Cháidámù Péndì) is an hyperarid basin that occupies a large part of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province, western China. The basin covers an area of approximately 120,000 km², one fourth of which is covered by saline lakes and playas.
  Around 35,000 square kilometers, or one third of the basin is desert, which is known in Chinese as Chaidamu Pendi Shamo (柴达木盆地沙漠), i.e. Qaidam Basin Desert.
  The Qaidam Basin forms a sort of shelf on the northeast side of the Tibetan Plateau. The Tibetan Plateau is at least 14,000 feet above sea level, the Qaidam about 10,000 and Gansu to the north about 3,000 to 4,000 feet. A low water divide separates the Qaidam Basin proper from that of Qinghai Lake to the east.
  Orographically, the Qaidam Basin is a comparatively low areas in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau. Qaidam is an intermontane basin, i.e. it is surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. In the south, the Kunlun Mountains separate it from the higher central section of the Tibetan Plateau. In the north, a number of smaller ridges (Shulenanshan, etc) separate the basin from another higher plateau, which is more known for its northern escarpment, the Qilian Mountains; that entire mountain system is often generically known as Nanshan. In the northwest, the Altyn-Tagh separates the Qaidam Basin from the Kumtagh Desert of southeastern Xinjiang.
  
  wn.com/Qaidam_Basin
• 
  Qatar
  Qatar (ⁱ/ˈkɑːtɑr/ or ⁱ/kəˈtɑr/;Arabic: قطر‎ [ˈqɑtˤɑr]; local vernacular pronunciation: [ɡɪtˤɑr]), also known as the country or State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island state of Bahrain.
  Qatar has been ruled as an absolute monarchy by Al Thani family since the mid-19th century. Formerly a British protectorate noted mainly for pearling, it became independent in 1971, and has become one of the region's wealthiest states due to its enormous oil and natural gas revenues. In 1995, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani became Emir when he seized power from his father, Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, in a peaceful coup d'état. The most important positions in Qatar are held by the members of the Al Thani family, or close confidants of the al-Thani family. Beginning in 1992, Qatar has built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.
  
  wn.com/Qatar
• 
  Rangipo Desert
  Rangipo Desert is a barren desert-like environment in New Zealand, located in the Ruapehu District on the North Island Volcanic Plateau; to the east of the three active peaks of Mount Tongariro, Mount Ngauruhoe, and Mount Ruapehu, and to the west of the Kaimanawa Range.
  The Rangipo Desert receives 1,500–2,500 mm (59–98 in) of rainfall per year, but resembles a desert because of a poor soil quality, drying winds and the mass sterilization of seeds during a series of violent eruptions, particularly ignimbrite flows about 20,000 years ago. The vegetation is low and sparse, consisting of mainly tussock and snow grasses. The headwaters of many small streams, which later to turn into large rivers, gouge deep serrated valleys through the unconsolidated ash and pumice-rich earth. The climate here is harsh and alpine, with close to 270 ground frosts per year in comparison with less than 30 in the coastal regions of Hawke's Bay, 80 km (50 mi) to the east. Heavy snowfalls - rarely seen in the rest of the island - are also a common occurrence in winter. Trampers and climbers in the area should be mindful of the extreme chill effect of the cold south wind which can produce wind chill factors lowering the temperature below zero for days on end.
  
  wn.com/Rangipo_Desert
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  Richtersveld
  The Richtersveld is a mountainous desert landscape characterised by rugged kloofs and high mountains, situated in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. It is full of changing scenery from flat sandy plains, to craggy sharp mountains of volcanic rock and the lushness of the Orange River, which forms the border with neighbouring Namibia. The park ranges in altitude from less than 60m (less than 200 feet) in its far North, along the Orange river, to 1377 m (4518 feet) at Cornellberg somewhat South of centre.
  Located in South Africa's northern Namaqualand, this arid area represents a harsh landscape where water is a great scarcity and only the hardiest of lifeforms survive. Despite this, the Richtersveld is regarded as the only Arid Biodiversity Hotspot on Earth, with an astonishing variety of plant, bird and animal life (much of which is endemic).
  A favourite amongst nature travellers to South Africa, the landscape is sometimes described as "martian". Though barren and desolate at first glance, closer examination reveals the area to be rich in desert lifeforms, with an array or unique species specially adapted for survival.
  
  wn.com/Richtersveld
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  Ryn Desert
  The Ryn Desert or Ryn-Peski Desert (Russian: Рын-пески; Kazakh: Нарын-Құм), is a desert in western Kazakhstan and southeastern Russia, north of the Caspian Sea and southeast of the Volga Upland. The borders of the desert are very loosely defined. Some maps show the desert almost entirely within the Caspian Depression, stretching almost to the coast of the Caspian Sea, while others show it north of the depression. It lies west of the Ural River between 46° and 49° North latitude, and 47° to 52° East longitude. Temperatures can reach extreme highs of 45°C to 48°C during summer and in winter it can drop to a low of -28°C to -36°C .
  Many small towns are scattered throughout the Ryn Desert, and population density is between 1 and 15 people per square mile. The Ryn lies in a semi-arid climate zone, and receives very little rainfall.
  High winds sweep across the desert, and in 2001 a dust storm in the Baltic Sea was determined as originating in the Ryn Desert^{[citation needed]}. A study of long-range dust transportation to the Baltic Sea region—by analyzing dust pollution in Scandinavia, showed that aerosol concentrations there were influenced more by the Ryn Desert region than the Sahara Desert in Africa.
  
  wn.com/Ryn_Desert
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  Sahara
  The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى‎, Aṣ-Ṣaḥrā´ al-Kubrā, "The Great Desert") is the world's largest hot desert and second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over 9,400,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as China or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna that composes the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa.
  Some of the sand dunes can reach 180 metres (590 ft) in height. The name comes from the Arabic word for desert: (صَحراء ṣaḥrāʾ [sˤɑħrɑːʔ] ( listen)).
  The Sahara's boundaries are the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Red Sea on the east, and the Sudan (region) and the valley of the Niger River on the south. The Sahara is divided into western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Air Mountains (a region of desert mountains and high plateaus), Ténéré desert and the Libyan desert (the most arid region). The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi (3,415 m/11,204 ft) in the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad.
  
  wn.com/Sahara
• 
  Saudi Arabia
  Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsaʊdi əˈreɪbi.ə/ or ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbi.ə/; Arabic: السعودية‎ as-Su‘ūdīyah^{[citation needed]} or incorrectly as-Sa‘ūdīyah, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية‎ al-Mamlakah al-‘Arabīyah as-Su‘ūdīyah  Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab world, after Algeria. It is bordered by Jordan, and Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south. The Red Sea lies to its west, and the Persian Gulf lies to the east. Saudi Arabia has an area of approximately 2,250,000 km² (870,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 9 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 2 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as the Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which has been an absolute monarchy since its inception, refers to its system of government as being Islamic, though this is contested by many due to its strong basis in Salafism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.
  
  wn.com/Saudi_Arabia
• Sechura Desert
  
  The Sechura Desert is located south of the Piura Region of Peru along the Pacific Ocean coast and inland to the foothills of the Andes Mountains. It is north of the Atacama Desert.
  Within Peru, the desert is described as the strip along the northern Pacific coast of Peru in the southern Piura and western Lambayeque regions, and extending from the coast 20–100 km inland to the secondary ridges of the Andes Mountains. At its northern end near the city of Piura, the Sechura Desert transitions to the Tumbes-Piura tropical-dry forests ecoregion. Comprising much of eastern Lambayeque Region, this habitat is composed of equatorial dry forests. The total area of the Sechura Desert is 188,735 km².
  The international World Wildlife Fund (WWF) defines the Sechura Desert as the entire stretch of coastal desert from the northwestern tip of Peru to parts of northern Chile, where it meets the Atacama Desert. In a third definition, the National Geographic Society includes part of the coastal desert in southern Peru (near Ica, Peru|Ica) within the Atacama Desert (See graphic map at Atacama Desert.)
  
  wn.com/Sechura_Desert
• 
  Simpson Desert
  Coordinates: 24°34′S 137°25′E / 24.57°S 137.42°E / -24.57; 137.42
  The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth largest Australian desert, with an area of 176,500 km² (68,100 sq mi).
  The desert is underlain by the Great Artesian Basin, one of the largest inland drainage areas in the world. Water from the basin rises to the surface at numerous natural springs, including Dalhousie Springs, and at bores drilled along stock routes, or during petroleum exploration. As a result of exploitation by such bores, the flow of water to springs has been steadily decreasing in recent years.
  The Simpson Desert is an erg which contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes. These north-south oriented dunes are static, held in position by vegetation. They vary in height from 3 metres in the west to around 30 metres on the eastern side. The largest and most famous dune, Nappanerica, or more popularly Big Red (named by Simpson Desert traveller Dennis Bartell), is 40 metres in height.
  
  wn.com/Simpson_Desert
• 
  Sonoran Desert
  The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which covers large parts of the Southwestern United States in Arizona, California, Northwest Mexico in Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America, with an area of 311,000 square kilometers (120,000 sq mi). The western portion of the United States-Mexico border passes through the Sonoran Desert.
  In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic Province of the Madrean Region in southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic Kingdom of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique and endemic plants and animals, such as the Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) and Organ Pipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi).
  The Sonoran desert wraps around the northern end of the Gulf of California, from Baja California Sur (El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve in central and Pacific west coast, Central Gulf Coast subregion on east to southern tip), north through much of Baja California, excluding the central northwest mountains and Pacific west coast, through southeastern California and southwestern and southern Arizona to western and central parts of Sonora.
  
  wn.com/Sonoran_Desert
• 
  Strzelecki Desert
  The Strzelecki Desert (English pronunciation: /tʃəˈlɛtski/) is located in the Far North Region of South Australia, southwest Queensland and western New South Wales. It is positioned in the northeast of the Lake Eyre Basin, and north of the Flinders Ranges. Two other deserts occupy the Lake Eyre Basin—the Tirari Desert and the Simpson Desert.
  The Dingo Fence, Birdsville Track, the Strzelecki Track, the Diamantina River, Cooper Creek and the Strzelecki Creek all pass through the Desert.
  The desert is characterized by extensive dune fields and is home to three wilderness areas. It was named after the Polish explorer Paweł Edmund Strzelecki by Charles Sturt. He was the first non-indigenous explorer in the area, followed closely by the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition.
  Much of the desert is preserved within the Strzelecki Regional Reserve in South Australia. Parts of the eastern sections of the desert are protected by the Sturt National Park. A population of the endangered Dusky Hopping Mouse lives in the desert.
  
  wn.com/Strzelecki_Desert
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  Sturt Stony Desert
  Sturt Stony Desert (previously Sturt's Stony Desert) is an area in the north-east of South Australia, named by Charles Sturt in 1844, while he trying to find the inland sea which he believed lay at the centre of the Australia . The stones caused his horses to limp and wore down the hooves of the cattle and sheep which Sturt had taken on the expedition.
  The larger Simpson Desert is located to the west and the Strzelecki Desert is to the south east. To the south west of Sturt Stony Desert is the Tirari Desert. The Birdsville Track is a route between Marree in South Australia and Birdsville in Queensland. The desert is part of the Tirari-Sturt stony desert ecoregion .
  Coordinates: 27°S 140°E / 27°S 140°E / -27; 140
  
  wn.com/Sturt_Stony_Desert
• 
  Syrian Desert
  The Syrian Desert (Arabic: بادية الشام, bādiyat ash-shām‎), also known as the Syro-Arabian desert is a combination of steppe and true desert that is located in the northern Arabian Peninsula covering 200,000 square miles (over 500,000 square kilometers). The desert is very rocky and flat.
  The Syrian desert is part of the Al-Hamad, which covers portions of Syria, Iraq, Jordan,and Saudi Arabia. Its border on the west is the Orontes Valley, and its border on the east is the Euphrates. In the north, the desert gives way to the more fertile areas of grass. In the south, it runs into the deserts of the southern Arabian Peninsula. Many mini-deserts exist in the Syrian Desert such as Palmyra. Damascus is located on an oasis. The desert's remarkable landscape was formed by lava flows from the volcanic region of the Jebel Druze in southern Syria. The Syrian Desert is the origin of the Syrian hamster.
  The desert was historically inhabited by bedouin tribes, and many tribes still remain in the region, their members living mainly in towns and settlements built near oases. Some bedouin still maintain their traditional way of life in the desert. Safaitic inscriptions, proto-Arabic texts written by literate bedouin, are found throughout the Syrian Desert. These date approximately from the 1st century B.C. to the 4th century A.D.
  
  wn.com/Syrian_Desert
• 
  Taklamakan Desert
  The Taklamakan Desert, also known as Taklimakan and Teklimakan, is a desert in northwest China, in the southwest portion of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, and the desert Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan (ancient Mount Imeon) to the west and north.
  The name is probably an Uyghur borrowing of Arabic tark, "to leave alone/out/behind, relinquish, abandon" + makan, "place". Another plausible explanation is that it is derived from Turki taqlar makan, which means "the place of ruins". Popular accounts wrongly claim that Takla Makan means "go in and you will never come out". It may also mean "The point of no return" or "The Desert of Death".
  The Taklamakan Desert Ecoregion is a Chinese ecoregion of the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome.^{[citation needed]}
  It has an area of 337,000 km². (130,116 sq. mi.), and includes the Tarim Basin, which is 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) long and 400 kilometres (250 mi) wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edge by two branches of the Silk Road as travelers sought to avoid the arid wasteland. It is the world's second largest shifting sand desert with about 85% made up of shifting sand dunes ranking 18th in size in a ranking of the world's largest non-polar deserts.
  
  wn.com/Taklamakan_Desert
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  Tanami Desert
  The Tanami Desert is a desert in northern Australia situated in the Northern Territory. It has a rocky terrain with small hills. The Tanami was the Northern Territory's final frontier and was not fully explored until well into the twentieth century. It is traversed by the Tanami Track.
  Under the name Tanami, it is one of the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) regions.
  According to government commissions, the Tanami desert is uniquely "one of the most important biological areas to be found in Australia particularly as it provides refuge for several of Australia's rare and endangered species."
  The species that are found include:
  Significant bird species include:
  The Tanami Desert is Kukatja and Walpiri country. The Tjurabalan live at the edge of the desert.
  Coordinates: 20°S 130°E / 20°S 130°E / -20; 130
  
  wn.com/Tanami_Desert
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  Tatacoa Desert
  The Tatacoa Desert, the second largest arid zone in Colombia after the Guajira Peninsula, is one of the most attractive scenery Colombia occupies 330 square kilometers of land in ocher and gray brushstrokes of green cactus. The Desert Tatacoa has two distinctive colors: ocher in the area of Cuzco and gray in the Los Hoyos. The Tatacoa or the Valley of Sorrows, as he called in 1538 the conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, for traces of deterioration noted in its territory is not just a desert, but a tropical dry forest. His name "Tatacoa" also gave it the Spanish, referring to rattlesnakes and not, as you might think, harmless snakes black. As revealed by scientists, Tatacoa during the Tertiary Period was a garden with thousands of flowers and trees have gradually been drying up to become a desert. This semiarid region that is located north of Huila Department, 38 km from the city of Neiva in Colombia and 10 miles from Natagaima in Tolima. It is a rich deposit of fossils and is a great tourist destination.
  
  wn.com/Tatacoa_Desert
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  Tengger Desert
  The Tengger Desert (Mongolian: Тэнгэр цөл, lit. Sky Desert, Chinese: 腾格里沙漠, Mandarin: Ténggélǐ Shāmò) covers about 36,700 km² and is mostly in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China.
  Coordinates: 38°42′N 104°42′E / 38.7°N 104.7°E / 38.7; 104.7
  
  wn.com/Tengger_Desert
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  Thar Desert
  The Thar Desert (Rajasthani: थार मरुधर, Hindi:थार मरुस्थल, Urdu (Urdu: تھر صحرا also known as the Great Indian Desert) is a large, arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent and forms a natural boundary running along the border between India and Pakistan. With an area of more than 200,000 km² (77,000 sq mi), it is the world's 9th largest subtropical desert.
  It lies mostly in the Indian State of Rajasthan, and extends into the northern portion of Haryana and Punjab states and into southern Gujarat state. In Pakistan, the desert covers eastern Sindh province and the southeastern portion of Pakistan's Punjab province. The Cholistan Desert adjoins the Thar desert spreading into Pakistani Punjab province.
  In India the Thar Desert (also known as the Great Indian Desert) extends from the Sutlej River, surrounded by the Aravalli Ranges on the east, on the south by the salt marsh known as the Great Rann of Kutch (parts of which are sometimes included in the Thar), and on the west by the Indus River. Its boundary to the large thorny steppe to the north is ill-defined, about 3/5th of the total geographical area of the State.
  In Pakistan, the desert covers eastern Sindh and the southeastern portion of Punjab, Pakistan. The Tharparkar District is one of the major parts of the desert area. Tharparkar consists of two words: Thar means ‘desert’ while Parkar stands for ‘the other side’.
  
  wn.com/Thar_Desert
• 
  Tirari Desert
  The Tirari Desert is a 15,250 square kilometres (5,888 sq mi)desert in the eastern part of the Far North region of South Australia.
  The Tirari Desert features salt lakes and large north-south running sand dunes. It is located partly within the Lake Eyre National Park. It lies mainly to the east of Lake Eyre North. Cooper Creek runs through the centre of the desert.
  The adjacent deserts of the area include Simpson Desert which lies to the north while the Strzelecki Desert is to the east and the Sturt Stony Desert runs aligned with the Birdsville track to the north east.
  The desert experiences harsh conditions with high temperatures and very low rainfall (mean annual rainfall is below 125 millimetres (4.9 in)).
  
  
  The main vehicular access to the desert is via the unpaved Birdsville Track which runs northwards from Marree to Birdsville. The Mungerannie Hotel is the only location between the two towns that provides services.
  The Tirari Desert region has a number of large cattle stations which are stopping points on the Channel Country aviation mail run.
  
  wn.com/Tirari_Desert
• Umm al Samim
  The Umm al Samim (Arabic: أم الصّميم‎) (also known as the Umm as Samim) is a quicksand area on the eastern edge of the Rub al'khali desert within Oman's borders. The waters, such as they are, drain into this brackish low-lying closed basin area off the Omani mountains and the wadis of the Rub al'khali. The Al Samim (known locally as the 'Mother of Poisons' or the 'Mother of Worries') is a salt marsh with a solid-looking crust but can be very treacherous when broken through. There is little vegetation.
  Sir Wilfred Thesiger, the traveller and explorer, was the first European to see the area in the late 1940s after his travels from Salalah in Oman.
  Coordinates: 21°38′N 55°54′E / 21.633°N 55.9°E / 21.633; 55.9
  
  
  
  wn.com/Umm_al_Samim
• 
  United Arab Emirates
  The United Arab Emirates ⁱ/juːˌnaɪtɨd ˌærəb ˈɛmɪrɨts/ (Arabic: دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة‎, Al Imārāt al ‘Arabīyah al Muttaḥidah), sometimes simply called the Emirates or the UAE, is a country situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south, as well as sharing sea borders with Qatar to the west and Iran to the north.
  The UAE is a federation of seven emirates (equivalent to principalities), each governed by a hereditary emir, with a single national president. The constituent emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. The capital is Abu Dhabi, which is also the state's center of political, industrial, and cultural activities.
  Prior to independence in 1971, the UAE was known as the Trucial States or Trucial Oman, in reference to a 19th-century truce between the local sheikhs, hereditary rulers of the territories, and the United Kingdom. The term Pirate Coast was also used by some to refer to the emirates from the 18th to the early 20th century, owing to the preponderance of pirates operating from Emirati ports.
  
  wn.com/United_Arab_Emirates
• Ustyurt Plateau
  The Ustyurt Plateau, also spelled Ust-Yurt, Ust-Urt and Usturt (Kazakh: Üstirt, Turkmen: Üstyurt), is a central Asian plateau in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea. It extends roughly 200,000 km², with an average elevation of 150 meters, and consists primarily of stony desert. The plateau’s semi-nomadic population raises sheep, goats, and camels.
  Coordinates: 43°17′N 55°33′E / 43.283°N 55.55°E / 43.283; 55.55
  
  
  
  wn.com/Ustyurt_Plateau
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  Wahiba Sands
  The Wahiba Sands, or Ramlat al-Wahiba (also called Sharqiya Sands), are a region of desert in Oman. The region is named for the Wahiba tribe. The area is defined by a boundary of 180 kilometers (110 mi) north to south and 80 kilometers (50 mi) east to west, with an area of 12,500 square kilometers (4,800 sq mi). The desert has been of scientific interest since a 1986 expedition by the Royal Geographical Society documented the diversity of the terrain, the flora and fauna, noting 16,000 invertebrates as well as 200 species of other wildlife, including avifauna. They also documented 150 species of native flora.
  The desert was formed during the Quaternary period as a result of the forces of south-west blowing monsoon and the northern shamal trade wind, coming in from the east. Based on the types of dunes found in the area, it is divided into the high, or upper, Wahiba and low Wahiba. The upper area contains mega-ridge sand systems on a north-south line that are believed to have been formed by monsoon. The dunes of the north, formed at some point after the last regional glaciation, measure up to 100 meters (330 ft) high, with peaks accumulating in the areas just beyond the strongest wind speeds, where declining velocity wind deposited sand. The north and west boundaries of the desert are delineated by the fluvial systems Wadi Batha and Wadi Andam. Beneath the surface sands are an older layer of cemented carbonate sand.Alluvium deposits believed to have originated from the Wadi Batha during the Paleolithic era have been disclosed in the central desert 200 meters (660 ft) beneath the interdune surface.Wind erosion is believed to have contributed to the existence of a nearly level plain in the southwest.
  
  wn.com/Wahiba_Sands
• 
  Yemen
  The Republic of Yemen (Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية‎ al-Jumhūrīyah al-Yamanīyah), commonly known as Yemen ⁱ/ˈjɛmən/ (Arabic: اليَمَن‎ al-Yaman), is a country located in Western Asia, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east. Yemen is considered one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. Its capital and largest city is Sana'a. Yemen's territory includes over 200 islands, the largest of which is Socotra, about 415 km (258 mi) to the south of mainland Yemen, off the coast of Somalia. It is the only state in the Arabian Peninsula to have a purely republican form of government. Approximately 53% of Yemenis are Sunnis, while 45% are Zaydi Shias.
  One etymology derives Yemen from yamin, meaning "on the right side", as the south is on the right when facing the sunrise. Another derives Yemen from yumn, meaning "felicity", as the region is fertile. The Romans called it Arabia Felix (Happy Arabia) as opposed to Arabia Deserta (Deserted Arabia), which was their term for northern Arabia.
  
  wn.com/Yemen
• Yp Desert
  The Yp Desert is a desert and ecoregion, within the Deserts and xeric shrublands Biome, in Owyhee County, Idaho, and Elko County, Nevada in the northwestern United States.
  The Yp Desert lies at the eastern edges of the Owyhee Desert, and is home to the South Fork Owyhee River Recreation Area.
  Josephine Reservoir, a small reservoir, Hat Peak, and the Duck Valley Indian Reservation are at the eastern perimeter of the Yp Desert.
  
  
  wn.com/Yp_Desert
• Yuha Desert
  The Yuha Desert is a section of the Sonoran Desert located in the Imperial Valley of California; south of Interstate 8, west of El Centro, CA, and north of the international border.
  Unique aspects of the Yuha Desert include the Oyster Shell Beds, De Anza Historical Monument, Crucifixion Thorn Natural Area, and the Yuha geoglyph. It is the homeland of the Quechan Native American people.
  The Yuha Desert is designated an Area of Critical Environmental Concern by the Bureau of Land Management and is managed as a limited use area for biologic and archeologic resource conservation. The primary species of concern is the flat-tailed horned lizard. Off Highway Vehicles(OHV) are limited to signed routes to protect both the flat-tail horned lizard habitat and the archeologic resources including, lithic reduction sites, and historic use of the region.
  Coordinates: 32°43′N 115°50′W / 32.717°N 115.833°W / 32.717; -115.833
  
  wn.com/Yuha_Desert

• 
  Al Di Meola
  Al Di Meola (born Al Laurence Dimeola, July 22, 1954, in Jersey City, New Jersey) is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin jazz guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date. Albums such as Friday Night in San Francisco have earned him both artistic and commercial success with a solid fan base throughout the world.
  Di Meola grew up in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and attended Bergenfield High School. He is now a resident of Bergen County, New Jersey.
  In 1971, he enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1974 he joined Chick Corea's band, Return to Forever, and played with the band until a major lineup shift in 1976.
  Di Meola went on to explore a variety of styles, but is most noted for his Latin-influenced jazz fusion works. He is a four-time winner as Best Jazz Guitarist in Guitar Player Magazine's Reader Poll.
  
  wn.com/Al_Di_Meola
• 
  Aziza Mustafa Zadeh
  Aziza Mustafa Zadeh (Azeri: Əzizə Mustafazadə; born December 19, 1969), also known as "The Princess of Jazz", or "Die Prinzessin des Jazz" or as "Jazziza", is an Azerbaijani singer, pianist and composer who plays a fusion of jazz and mugam (a traditional improvisational style of Azerbaijan) with classical and Avant-garde influences. Reviewers have said that her style also shows some influence from Keith Jarrett. She currently resides in Mainz, Germany, with her mother, Eliza Mustafa Zadeh, who is also her manager. Her two favorite leisure activities, she says, are painting and sleeping. She is a vegetarian. She believes in God even though she does not consider herself as belonging to any religion. Since 1991, Aziza has sold around 15 million albums worldwide.
  Aziza was born in Baku to musical parents Vagif and Elza Mustafa Zadeh. Vagif was a pianist and composer, famous for creating the mugam-jazz fusion in which his daughter now plays. Elza is a classically trained singer from Georgia.
  
  wn.com/Aziza_Mustafa_Zadeh
• 
  Biréli Lagrène
  Biréli Lagrène (born September 4, 1966) is a French guitarist and bassist. He came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt-influenced style on the guitar, as well as for being a jazz fusion virtuoso on the electric guitar. He often performs within the swing, jazz fusion and post bop mediums.
  Biréli Lagrène was born on September 4, 1966, in Soufflenheim, Bas-Rhin Alsace, France, in a traditional Manouche-Romani people (Gypsy) family and community. He started playing the guitar at the age of four. He grew up in the loving but tough environment of the "tzigane". His father Fisso (a very gifted violinist), his mother Berga and his brother Gaiti were his biggest influences. When, at the age of eight, he covered Django Reinhardt’s repertoire, his relatives were already calling him a child prodigy. Winning a Romani music festival in Strasbourg at the age of twelve gave him the opportunity to tour in Germany and, later, to record his performance on the LP Routes To Django - live At The Krokodil.
  
  wn.com/Biréli_Lagrène
• 
  Carlos Santana
  Carlos Augusto Alves Santana (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican and American rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, Latin music and jazz fusion. The band's sound featured his melodic, blues-based guitar lines set against Latin and African rhythms featuring percussion instruments such as timbales and congas not generally heard in rock music. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed Santana at number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and 3 Latin Grammy Awards.
  Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico. Carlos learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. His younger brother, Jorge Santana, would also become a professional guitarist. Young Carlos was heavily influenced by Ritchie Valens at a time when there were very few Latinos in American rock and pop music. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana In La Colonia Libertad, the city on Mexico's border with California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but joined his family in San Francisco later and graduated from James Lick Middle School and Mission High School there. He graduated from Mission High in 1965. Carlos was accepted into the California State University, Northridge and Humboldt State University, but turned down both of the offers. Javier Bátiz, a famous guitarist from Tijuana, was said to have been Carlos's guitar teacher who taught him to play a different style of guitar soloing. After learning Javier Batiz's techniques, Santana would make them his own as well.
  
  wn.com/Carlos_Santana
• 
  Chick Corea
  Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (born June 12, 1941) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.
  Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.
  His career has been driven by his will to operate as a free agent and compulsively explore different avenues of music making. This hunger has positioned him as an important catalyst in the world of serious, mainstream acoustic jazz, and he is one of the most influential and widely studied figures in the last 40 years.
  Corea continued to pursue other collaborations and to explore various musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He is also known for promoting and fundraising for a number of social issues, such as eradicating social illiteracy, and is a Scientologist.
  
  wn.com/Chick_Corea
• 
  Derek Sherinian
  Derek Sherinian (born August 25, 1966) is an American keyboardist who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, Yngwie Malmsteen, Kiss, and Alice In Chains. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994–1999, and is the founder of progressive metal/instrumental rock supergroup Planet X. Sherinian is also one of the founding members of Black Country Communion. His solo albums often feature a variety of prominent guest musicians, including guitarists Slash, Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa, Billy Sheehan, Zakk Wylde and Al Di Meola.
  Sherinian has distinguished himself by his aggressive "guitaristic" approach to his keyboard style. He has appeared on the cover of keyboard magazines across the world, including the November 2011 issue of Keyboard Magazine, which declared Sherinian a "Keyboard hero for a new generation". He has also been called the "King of the Keys" by Guitar World magazine and the "Caligula of Keyboards" by Alice Cooper. His main musical influences include Elton John, Van Halen and Jeff Beck.
  
  wn.com/Derek_Sherinian
• 
  George Dalaras
  George Dalaras (Greek: Γιώργος Νταλάρας, born 29 September 1949), also possibly spelled as Yorgos or Giorgos Dalaras, is a Greek singer. He is of international fame and has recently been selected as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. He was born in Nea Kokinia, Piraeus. His father was Loukas Daralas, a singer of rebetiko.
  Dalaras' first song, "Προσμονή" ("Expectation"), was recorded in 1967. The single never reached any popular status, in fact it was barely released. Dalaras even had to struggle to get into the studio, as ironically the day he began his studio career was the day that the Greek military junta took over the streets of Athens, and the roads were littered with tanks. After several appearances on various recordings as a guest singer, his debut album was released in early 1969, a self-titled album released on the Minos label. The recording included many compositions by Stavros Kouyioumtzis, who in the early years proved a fountain of help towards Dalaras achieving musical success. As Dalaras has said in various interviews, he owes the fact that he became a singer to Kouyioumtzis, who composed Dalaras' first songs. His relation with Kouyioumtzis remained friendly until the sudden death of the composer due to a heart attack in March 2005.
  
  wn.com/George_Dalaras
• 
  Jan Hammer
  Jan Hammer (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjan ˈɦamɛr]) (born 17 April 1948, in Prague, then Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic) is a composer, pianist and keyboardist. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the popular 1980s program, Miami Vice. He continued to work as both a musical performer and producer, expanding to producing film later in his career.
  Hammer has collaborated with some of the era's most influential jazz and rock musicians such as Jeff Beck, Al Di Meola, Mick Jagger, Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Neal Schon, Steve Lukather, and Elvin Jones among many others. He has composed and produced at least 14 original motion picture soundtracks, the music for 90 episodes of Miami Vice and 20 episodes of the popular British television series Chancer.
  His compositions have won him several Grammy awards.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Jan_Hammer
• 
  John Petrucci
  John Peter Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is an American guitarist and songwriter best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Along with his former bandmate Mike Portnoy, he has produced all Dream Theater albums since their 1999 release, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. He is also a backing vocalist for Dream Theater. Petrucci was named as the third player on the G3 tour six times, more than any other invited guitarists. In 2009 he was named the No. 2 Best metal guitarist by Joel McIver in his book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists. He was also named as one of the "Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All Time" by GuitarOne magazine.
  John Petrucci was born on July 12, 1967 in Kings Park, New York to an Italian American family. He picked up the guitar at the early age of 8 because his older sister was allowed to go to bed later in order to practice the piano. However he decided to quit the guitar when his attempts to stay up late were unsuccessful. He would later pick up the guitar again at the age of 12 when his childhood friend and future Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore invited John to join his cover band.
  
  wn.com/John_Petrucci
• 
  Larry Coryell
  Larry Coryell (born April 2, 1943) is an American jazz fusion guitarist.
  Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington,^{[citation needed]} where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby Yakima, Washington. He then moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington.^{[citation needed]} He played in a number of popular Northwest bands, including The Dynamics, while living in Seattle.
  In 1965, Coryell moved to New York City where he became part of Chico Hamilton's quintet, replacing Gabor Szabo. In 1967 and 1968, he recorded with Gary Burton. Also during the mid-1960s he played with The Free Spirits. His music during the late-1960s and early-1970s combined the influences of rock, jazz and eastern music. He formed his own group, The Eleventh House, in 1973. The album sold well in college towns and the ensemble toured widely to support that. Following the break-up of this band, Coryell played mainly acoustic guitar, but returned to electric guitar later in the 1980s. In 1979, Coryell formed "The Guitar Trio" with jazz fusion guitarist John McLaughlin and flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia. The group toured Europe briefly, eventually releasing a video recorded at Royal Albert Hall in London entitled "Meeting of Spirits". In early 1980, Coryell's drug addiction led to him being replaced by Al Di Meola.
  
  wn.com/Larry_Coryell
• 
  Leonid Agutin
  Leonid Nikolayevich Agutin (Russian: Леонид Николаевич Агутин; b. July 16, 1968) is a Russian pop musician and poet, active since the 1990s. He has released 8 albums and 3 compilation albums.
  Agutin was born in Moscow to the musician Nikolai Petrovich Agutin and the teacher Lyudmila Leonidovna Shkol'nikova. Along with receiving a standard education, he also graduated from the Moscow Jazz school "Moskvorechie" as a pianist. He later served in the army on the Russia–Finland border.
  In 1993, Agutin graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Culture as a theatre director. In 1997, Agutin married the stage performer Anzhelika Varum, his second marriage.
  Agutin has a hobby of collecting crosses and playing billards. He also believes in the predictions of astrologists.
  In 1991, Agutin started touring the Soviet Union with a musical act. He participated and won the Yalta international pop music contest of 1992, and won a similar contest in Jūrmala in 1993. Agutin released his first solo album, Bosonogiy Malchik ("Barefoot Boy") in 1994, which was a success and launched his career.
  
  wn.com/Leonid_Agutin
• Manuel Barrueco
  Manuel Barrueco (pronounced Mah-noo-éhl Bah-roo-éh-koh) is a Cuban virtuoso classical guitarist. He was born in 1952 in Santiago de Cuba, on Cuba's southeastern shore. He has toured in the U.S., Europe and Japan, and serves on the faculty of Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.
  Manuel Barrueco began playing the guitar at the age of eight, and he attended the Esteban Salas Conservatory in his native Santiago de Cuba. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1967, later completing his advanced studies at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where he was granted a scholarship.
  At the age of 22, he became the first classical guitarist to receive the Concert Artist Guild Award in 1974, attesting to the fact that before him, guitar music hadn't been universally accepted in classical music.
  His first recordings aroused incredulous amazement about his skills and musical interpretation. Ever since, Barrueco has toured extensively, appearing in some of the world's most important musical centers, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Munich, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Rome, Copenhagen, Athens, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.
  
  wn.com/Manuel_Barrueco
• 
  Paco de Lucía
  Paco de Lucía, born Francisco Gustavo Sánchez Gómez (in Algeciras, Cádiz on December 21, 1947), is a Spanish flamenco guitarist and composer. Author Dorien Ross claims in his book "Return to "A" that de Lucía is one of the finest guitarists in the world and the greatest guitarist of the flamenco genre. He is noted in particular for his dexterity, technique and strength in his right hand, capable of executing extremely fast and fluent picados.
  He is a leading proponent of the Modern Flamenco style, and is one of the very few flamenco guitarists who has also successfully crossed over into other genres of music such as classical and jazz. He is the winner of the 2004 Prince of Asturias Awards in Arts and in 2010 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Berklee College of Music in Boston.
  Paco de Lucía was born Francisco Gustavo Sánchez Gómez in Algeciras, a city in the province of Cádiz, at the southernmost tip of Spain directly in front of the Rock of Gibraltar. The youngest of the five children of flamenco guitarist Antonio Sánchez, and brother of flamenco singer Pepe de Lucía and flamenco guitarist Ramón de Algeciras. In the documentary Paco de Lucía-Light and Shade: A Portrait he tells how, when he was playing in the streets as a young boy, there were many Pacos and Pablos so in order to distinguish them people would add the name of the boy's mother. This is how he came to have the name Paco de Lucia. (Paco de Lucía album)|Luzia]] .
  
  wn.com/Paco_de_Lucía
• 
  Paul Simon
  Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is a grammy award winning American singer-songwriter, poet and guitarist.
  Simon's international fame and success began as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, launched in 1964 with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached No. 1 on the U.S. singles charts: "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". The duo split up in 1970 at the height of their popularity, and Simon began a successful solo career, recording three highly acclaimed albums over the next five years. In 1986, he released Graceland, an album inspired by South African township music. Simon also wrote and starred in the film One-Trick Pony in 1980 and co-wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman in 1998.
  Simon has earned 12 Grammys for his solo and collaborative work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2006 was selected as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time magazine. Among many other honors, Simon was the first recipient of the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007. In 1986 Simon was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Simon
• 
  Richie Sambora
  Richard Stephen "Richie" Sambora (born July 11, 1959) is an American rock guitarist, producer, musician, singer, and songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the rock band, Bon Jovi. He and frontman Jon Bon Jovi form the primary songwriting unit of the band. He has also released two solo albums: Stranger in This Town in 1991, and Undiscovered Soul in 1998.
  Sambora was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the son of Joan, a secretary, and Adam, a factory foreman. Sambora is of Polish and Italian descent and was raised Catholic. He grew up in Woodbridge, New Jersey and attended Woodbridge High School there, graduating in 1977. He began playing the guitar at the age of 12 following the death of guitar legend Jimi Hendrix in 1970. From his early days Sambora was strongly influenced by blues and 60s rock 'n' roll. His most important influences were Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Jimmy Page, Joe Perry, Joe Kmiecik, and George Harrison. He was also influenced by Spanish classical music and began a life long love of the Spanish guitar. Furthermore, he has stated that psychedelic soul singer Janis Joplin crept into his heart very early in the late 60s and early 70s, having a big influence on his musical style. Classical music directly inspired several of his songs, such as The Answer which was originally written on piano.
  
  wn.com/Richie_Sambora
• 
  Stanley Clarke
  Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass as well as for his numerous film and television scores. He is best known for his work with the fusion band Return to Forever, and his role as a bandleader in several trios and ensembles.
  Clarke was born in Philadelphia. He was introduced to the bass as a schoolboy when he arrived late on the day instruments were distributed to students and acoustic bass was one of the few remaining selections. He is a graduate of Roxborough High School in Philadelphia. Having graduated from the Philadelphia Musical Academy, (which was absorbed into the University of the Arts in 1985), he moved to New York City in 1971 and began working with famous bandleaders and musicians including Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Gato Barbieri, Joe Henderson, Chick Corea, Pharoah Sanders, Gil Evans and Stan Getz. He was an avid supporter of Scientology in his earlier musical productions, and referred to L. Ron Hubbard on most of his LP sleeves. His current association with Scientology is not known.
  
  wn.com/Stanley_Clarke
• 
  Stanley Jordan
  Stanley Jordan (July 31, 1959) is an American jazz/jazz fusion guitarist and pianist.
  He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and he received a BA in digital music composition from Princeton University in 1981, studying under computer-music composers Paul Lansky and Milton Babbitt. Stanley Jordan began his music career at age six, studying piano, then shifted his focus to guitar at age eleven. He later began playing in rock and soul bands. In 1976, Jordan won an award at the Reno, Nevada, Jazz Festival. While earning a degree from Princeton in 1981 he played with Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie.
  Jordan has performed at many jazz festivals, including: Kool Jazz Festival (1984), Concord Jazz Festival (1985), and the Montreux International Jazz Festival (1985). During the 1980s Jordan played with Quincy Jones, Michal Urbaniak, and Richie Cole. Since working at Birdland in New York in 1989–1990, Jordan has maintained a lower profile. Stanley Jordan has four Grammy Nominations.
  Normally, a guitarist must use two hands to play each note. One hand presses down a guitar string behind a chosen fret to prepare the note, and the other hand either plucks or strums the string to play that note. Jordan's touch technique is an advanced form of two-handed tapping. The guitarist produces a note using only one finger by quickly tapping (or hammering) his finger down behind the appropriate fret. The force of impact causes the string to vibrate enough to immediately sound the note, and Jordan executes tapping with both hands, and with more legato than is normally associated with guitar tapping. The note's volume can be controlled by varying the force of impact: tapping with greater force produces a louder note.
  
  wn.com/Stanley_Jordan
• 
  Steve Gadd
  Steve Gadd (born April 9, 1945 in Irondequoit, New York) is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with popular musicians from a wide range of genres.
  Gadd is a native of Irondequoit, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York. When he was seven years old, his uncle, who was a drummer in the US army, encouraged him to take drum lessons. By the age of eleven he had sat in with Dizzy Gillespie.
  After graduating from Irondequoit's Eastridge High School, he attended the Manhattan School of Music for two years before transferring to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, playing in wind ensembles and concert bands. After Gadd finished college in the late 1960s, he played regularly with Chuck Mangione and his brother Gap Mangione. His first recording was on Gap Mangione's debut solo album, Diana in the Autumn Wind (1968).
  Gadd was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent three years as a drummer in the Army Music Program, most of which was spent with the Jazz Ambassadors of the U.S. Army Field Band in Ft. Meade, MD. While living in the Washington DC area, he briefly took lessons from the noted jazz drummer, Michael S. Smith. Following his military service, Gadd played and worked with a band in Rochester. In 1972, Gadd formed a trio with Tony Levin and Mike Holmes, traveling to New York with them. The trio eventually broke up, but Gadd began to work mainly as a studio musician. Gadd also played with Chick Corea's Return to Forever but left the group.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Gadd
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
• 
  Yngwie Malmsteen
  Yngwie Johann Malmsteen (/ˈɪŋveɪ ˈmɑːlmstiːn/ ING-vay MAHLM-steen; born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck on 30 June 1963) is a Swedish guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader. Malmsteen became known for his neo-classical playing style in heavy metal. Steve Huey of Allmusic stated that, "Yngwie Malmsteen is arguably the most technically accomplished hard rock guitarist to emerge during the '80s."
  Malmsteen was born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck in Stockholm, Sweden, as the second child of a musically-talented family. At age seven, he saw a television news report on the death of Jimi Hendrix, an event which had a profound impact on his musical path. Malmsteen, however, has stated that Hendrix had no musical impact on him, but on 18 September 1970 he saw a TV special of Hendrix, where he smashed and burned his guitar, and Malmsteen thought: "this is really cool". To quote his official website, "The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Yngwie was born".
  At the age of 10 he took his mother's maiden name Malmsten as his surname, slightly changed it to Malmsteen, and Anglicised his third given name Yngve to "Yngwie". Malmsteen created his first band "Track On Earth" at the age of 10, consisting of himself and a friend from school on drums (Armin). Malmsteen was a teenager when he first encountered the music of the 19th century violinist composer Niccolò Paganini, whom he cites as his biggest classical music influence. Ritchie Blackmore and Uli Jon Roth are also cited as being significant influences, as is Brian May of Queen.
  
  wn.com/Yngwie_Malmsteen

The People of the Arabian Desert (1911)

Genres

• Documentary
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Quotes:

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