Mojave Desert

The Mojave Desert is a desert of the southwestern United States, lying mainly across southeastern California and southwestern Nevada with smaller portions reaching into Arizona and Utah, held in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada and the Transverse Ranges. Covering roughly 81,000 square kilometers, it is the smallest and driest of the four major North American deserts, and its basin and range topography of parallel mountain chains and valleys includes Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America. Annual precipitation runs only two to six inches, most of it arriving as Pacific storm moisture between November and April, while summer temperatures regularly top 100 degrees Fahrenheit and winters can bring hard freezes. The desert is best known for the Joshua tree, a spiky yucca endemic to the region, and its wildlife includes desert bighorn sheep, mountain lions, black-tailed jackrabbits and desert tortoises among roughly 230 bird species and 98 mammal species recorded across the desert. Beyond its ecology, the Mojave has long supported ranching, military training grounds and mineral extraction of silver, tungsten, iron and gold.