Did you know that:

• deserts cover a third of the earth's surface

• 13 per cent of the world's population live in deserts

• evaporation rates in deserts are often 20 times the annual precipitation

• a temperature of 58° C (136.4° F) has been recorded in the shade at Azizia in Libya

• no rain fell for over 40 years in the Atacama desert in Chile

• night temperatures in some deserts can fall below freezing

• sand dunes can reach heights of up to 300m

• sand covers less than 20 per cent of the world's desert areas

• dust from the Sahara has occasionally been carried as far afield as the UK and Germany

• the Sahara Desert accounts for around 8 per cent of the world's land area

• there are an estimated 1,200 species of plant to be found in the Sahara

• in the last 50 years the Sahara has spread south to cover an extra 65 million hectares

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photo courtesy of DigitalVision