The
Atacama Desert (
Desierto de Atacama) is a
plateau in
South America, covering a 1000 km strip of land on the
Pacific coast, west of the
Andes mountains. It is, according to
NASA,
National Geographic and other sources, the driest
desert in the world. The Atacama occupies 105000 km
2 composed mostly of
salt lakes (
salares),
sand, and felsic lava flows towards the Andes.