01/10/2024
Arabian Desert, great desert region of extreme southwestern Asia that occupies almost the entire Arabian Peninsula. It is the largest desert area on the continent—covering an area of about 900,000 square miles (2,300,000 square km)—and the second largest on Earth, surpassed in size only by the Sahara, in northern Africa.
The Arabian Desert is bordered to the north by the Syrian Desert, to the northeast and east by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, to the southeast and south by the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and to the west by the Red Sea. A large part of the Arabian Desert lies within the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Yemen, on the coast of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, borders the desert to the southwest. Oman, bulging out into the Gulf of Oman, lies at the eastern edge of the desert. The sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to the west stretch along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf at the desert’s northeastern limit. The emirate of Kuwait abuts the northern Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. In the northwest the desert extends into Jordan.
Seen from the air, the Arabian Desert appears as a vast expanse of light sand-coloured terrain with an occasional indistinct line of escarpments or mountain ranges, black lava flows, or reddish systems of desert dunes stretching to the horizon. Camel trails crisscross the surface between watering places. On the ground, features become distinctly individual and the relief seems more prominent. Vegetation at first seems nonexistent, but the discerning eye can find sparse patches of growth on the surface, or bits of green where shrubs strive to survive. There is almost always a breeze, which changes seasonally to winds of gale force. Cold or hot, those air currents chill the body or roast it. The Sun and Moon are bright in clear skies, although dust and humidity may lower visibility.
