4 deserts · 8 states · Great Basin is the largest · Death Valley is the hottest and lowest
US deserts map
The United States has four major deserts, all in the Southwest and Great Basin: the cold Great Basin Desert and the hot Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. Together they cover most of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico and large parts of California, Utah and Texas.
The four deserts
| Desert | Type | US states | Area (sq mi, approx.) | Signature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Basin | Cold (winter snow) | NV, UT, OR, ID, CA | about 190,000 | Sagebrush; no rivers reach the sea |
| Mojave | Hot, transitional | CA, NV, AZ, UT | about 48,000 | Joshua trees; Death Valley |
| Sonoran | Hot, two rainy seasons | AZ, CA (and Sonora, Baja California) | about 100,000 total | Saguaro cactus; Phoenix and Tucson |
| Chihuahuan | Hot, high (3,000–5,000 ft) | NM, TX, AZ (mostly in Mexico) | about 140,000 total | Creosote and yucca; White Sands, Big Bend |
The Great Basin is a cold desert because it sits at 4,000–6,500 ft; the other three are hot deserts. The Chihuahuan is the largest of the four in total, but most of it lies in Mexico; on the US map the Great Basin covers the most ground. The Colorado Plateau's Painted Desert and Wyoming's Red Desert are semi-arid areas usually mapped separately.
Where each desert is
- Great Basin — almost all of Nevada, the western third of Utah, southeastern Oregon and a corner of Idaho, boxed in by the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Wasatch on the east. Dozens of short north–south ranges separate flat valleys; rivers such as the Humboldt end in sinks and salt flats, including the Bonneville Salt Flats and Great Salt Lake.
- Mojave — southeastern California between the Sierra and the Colorado River, plus southern Nevada around Las Vegas, the northwestern corner of Arizona and the St. George area of Utah. Contains Death Valley, the lowest, hottest and driest place in North America.
- Sonoran — southwestern Arizona and the southeastern corner of California (the Colorado Desert and Imperial Valley), continuing deep into Mexico. The only desert where saguaros grow.
- Chihuahuan — the Rio Grande valley of southern New Mexico and west Texas, from Albuquerque south through El Paso to Big Bend and the Pecos country, with a fringe in southeastern Arizona.
Cities in the deserts
Phoenix, Mesa and Tucson are in the Sonoran; Las Vegas in the Mojave; El Paso and Albuquerque on the Chihuahuan's edge; Reno and Salt Lake City on the margins of the Great Basin. Palm Springs, Yuma, Lancaster and St. George are the other sizeable desert towns. Phoenix, with about 1.6 million people in 2020, is the largest desert city in the country.
National parks in the deserts
Death Valley and Joshua Tree (Mojave, California), Great Basin (Nevada), Saguaro (Sonoran, Arizona), and White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mountains and Big Bend (Chihuahuan, New Mexico and Texas). See the national parks map.
How the deserts shaped the map
The desert states were the last of the contiguous 48 to be admitted: Nevada in 1864 (for its silver), Utah in 1896, Arizona and New Mexico in 1912. Their borders are straight survey lines because there were no rivers to follow apart from the Colorado, which forms Arizona's western edge, and the Rio Grande. The deserts are also why the Southwest's cities depend on distant water: the Central Arizona Project, the Colorado River Aqueduct and the Hoover Dam reservoirs.
Related maps
- Mojave Desert · Sonoran Desert — the two detail pages.
- Colorado Plateau · Colorado River · Rio Grande.
- Southwest states · All geography maps.