ATACAMA DESERT

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth. The Atacama is in the country of Chile in South America. In an average year, much of this desert gets less than 1 millimeter (0.04 inch) of rain! That makes it 50 times drier than Death Valley in California. It is hard to survive in the Atacama Desert. Few people, animals, plants, or even microbes live there. But the desert isn’t completely without life. Some people and other living creatures do get by in the Atacama. The Atacama is the driest hot desert in the world. There are some weather stations in the Atacama where there has never been any rain! Not all deserts are hot.