Atacama Desert

The driest non-polar desert on Earth, along Chile's Pacific coast/Deserts

The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is the driest non-polar desert on Earth, with some weather stations having never recorded rain. It stretches about 1,600 km along the Pacific coast and covers approximately 105,000 square kilometers. Some regions receive as little as 1 mm of precipitation per year. The extreme aridity makes it an ideal site for astronomical observatories (including ALMA and the Very Large Telescope), and NASA uses it as a Mars analog for testing rovers. Despite the harsh conditions, over one million people live in Atacama cities.