We all know what a desert looks like, Sandy, Dry, Hot. Many of you might have visited deserts or have seen them in pictures. But they don't always look as how it is shown in movies. Subtropical deserts like the Sahara are what people generally imagine when they think about the desert.

The Sahara has rocky plateaus as well as dunes. During the summer, the temperature in the Sahara can reach over 50°C (122°F), making it one of the hottest deserts on Earth. But today I would like to share the truth that not all deserts are hot and sandy. A Geographical classification for the Hot desert is just a place that has very little precipitation.

Interestingly there exist Cold deserts too. The cold deserts are mostly found in temperate regions at higher latitudes, e.g. the Arctic, the Antarctic and Greenland including the areas above the tree lines of mountain ranges. They have mildly hot summers and extremely cold winters. They generally experience low temperatures and long winters. The average temperature ranges from - 2 to 4 degrees Celsius in winter and 21 to 26 degrees Celsius in summer. The precipitation is higher in cold deserts and snowfall is common in winter.

Based on the above information, some of the key differences between a hot desert and a cold desert are as follows:

The map shows the 25 largest deserts in the world. Click here 
Blue icons are cold deserts, orange is hot.
How many deserts can you name?