Stretching towards Peru and Bolivia, it lays claim to being the driest desert in the world, with only 0.01mm of rain falling in an average year.
Historically, the Egyptian government has forced people to live in areas on Cairo's periphery, by evicting them from poor inner-city areas, and relocating them to the desert towns.
· He tapped the country's vast wealth from gas for outlandish projects including a huge manmade lake in the Kara Kum desert, a vast cypress forest to change the desert climate, an ice palace outside the capital, a ski resort and a 130ft pyramid.
Setting up an elaborate Berber camp in the July heat each day looked like hard work but Bobo laughed it off: "We are used to the desert.
Lucky for me, we weren't, as it may sound, in the Sahara desert, we were on the Atlantic coast, so I simply stripped down to my bikini and ran into the sea.
In winter the tribe live in the desert, running a luxury camp (desertcampmorocco.com).
Like him, the other detainees had been snatched by US soldiers from Iraq's towns and cities and flown to a place that had already become infamous: a foreboding desert fortress that would shape the legacy of the US presence in Iraq.
Morricone revolutionised the way music was used in westerns, creating a wild west soundscape of gunshots, eerie whistling, twanging guitars and dissonant harmonicas that matched the unsettling heat and tension of Leone's parched desert landscape, and its heroes and villains, portrayed through long shots and close-up cinematography.
He walked away from his desert village in Eritrea with nothing but sandals on his feet.
About how the United States turned swathes of the desert radioactive during the cold war and denied it, bequeathing a medical mystery which to this day haunts Hollywood and rural Mormon communities and raises a thorny question: how much should you trust the government?
Cochella, the Southern Californian desert festival, announced last week that they'll be handing out free earplugs to all festival goers.
