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Largest Countries Without Deserts

Can you name the largest countries by area that don't have regions with a desert climate?
Based on the Köppen climate classification scheme
Includes hot deserts (BWh), cold deserts (BWk), and polar deserts (EF)
Source: this map
Quiz by georgekotz
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Last updated: February 6, 2025
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First submittedFebruary 16, 2018
Times taken62,257
Average score80.0%
Rating4.82
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Area (km²)
Continent
Country
2,344,858
Africa
D. R. Congo
1,910,931
Asia
Indonesia
945,087
Africa
Tanzania
799,380
Africa
Mozambique
752,612
Africa
Zambia
676,578
Asia
Myanmar
640,679
Europe
France
622,984
Africa
Central African Republic
619,745
Africa
South Sudan
603,500
Europe
Ukraine
Area (km²)
Continent
Country
513,120
Asia
Thailand
462,840
Oceania
Papua New Guinea
450,295
Europe
Sweden
406,752
Americas
Paraguay
377,930
Asia
Japan
357,114
Europe
Germany
342,000
Africa
Rep. of the Congo
338,424
Europe
Finland
331,212
Asia
Vietnam
330,803
Asia
Malaysia
94 Comments
+37
Level ∞
Jun 28, 2023
Colombia and Venezuela have very small desert areas near the Caribbean coast.
+15
Level 71
Feb 23, 2018
interesting!
+15
Level 73
Feb 23, 2018
Agreed, I didn't get Paraguay until the last minute.

There were some real surprises to me as far as larger countries that did NOT make this list.

+7
Level 77
Jun 25, 2018
I can't believe that no part of the Paraguayan Chaco qualifies! I thought of it, but it's so dry that I thought there was no way it was worth putting in.
+5
Level 45
Feb 8, 2021
its because the technical definiton of a desert is not warm, it is based on wether a place gets less than a specific amount of rain. Canada, russia having such cold areas rain wouldn't be in the form of rain just snow and ice. Antartica is actually the worlds largest desert
+3
Level 44
Jun 26, 2018
your telling me Canada has desert?
+12
Level 75
Jun 27, 2018
Okanagan Desert in BC.
+5
Level 86
Jun 28, 2023
The Wikipedia page for "Okanagan Desert" seems to say that it is not technically a desert. This seems to be confirmed by the map here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada#/media/File:Canada_Köppen.svg

The Wikipedia webpage for "desert" says: "In the Köppen climate classification system, deserts are classed as BWh (hot desert) or BWk (temperate desert)." It doesn't look like there's any BWh or BWk in Canada.

+1
Level 62
Jun 29, 2023
Canada is disqualified only by Mount Logan.
+22
Level 65
Aug 4, 2018
The arctic tundra is also classed as a cold desert.
+3
Level 86
Jun 28, 2023
Certainly by some classifications, but it doesn't look to me like the Koppen classification being used here calls the artic tundra a desert.
+3
Level 67
Jun 28, 2022
Desert in The Badlands around Drumheller, AB as well.
+1
Level 62
Jun 29, 2023
Not according to Koppen, I believe.
+3
Level 78
Jun 28, 2023
Because of a rain shadow effect from the surrounding mountains, parts of the Thompson River valley near Ashcroft, BC are arid enough to be classified as having a desert microclimate. Initially the quiz didn't count polar deserts and Canada was nevertheless not an answer because of that.
+1
Level 68
Feb 5, 2025
I am not sure Ashcroft gets dry enough to get a desert Koppen climate. Precipitation in Ashcroft is around 541 mm a year per Wikipedia. Just did some rough math with that chart, with an average temperature of 10.1 C, and even precipitation across the year, average precipitation would have to be ~120 mm a year to cross the line from a semi-arid to a desert koppen climate. There would need to be a microclimate with a fifth the rainfall of Ashcroft itself for somewhere near Ashcroft to have a desert koppen climate

I think the claim that Ashcroft has a desert climate comes not from a Koppen classification, but rather because Ashcroft is basically the only place in Canada which has an Arid climate per the Aridity Index, which has slightly different requirements from desert Koppen climates. It is a desert climate under that calculation.

Edit: Looking this up, seeing a claim that the actual precip in Ashcroft is actually ~200 mm. This would make a desert microclimate plausible.

+2
Level 78
Feb 6, 2025
@Kearsarge: The Wikipedia climate chart for Ashcroft cites a page that actually refers to Spences Bridge, which is more than 30 km south of Ashcroft, and that page is still terribly miscited, with the precipitation numbers considerably inflated. The Wikipedia page on Ashcroft also contains a link to an article on the desert microclimate around Ashcroft, which, although seemingly based on somewhat informal original research, appears to rely on accurate data as well as the Koppen classification.
+3
Level 70
Feb 24, 2018
Actually, Japan has a very tiny desert: Tottori sand dunes.
+27
Level 86
Feb 24, 2018
"Technically, it's not a desert (far too much rain)" http://japan.apike.ca/japan_tottori_sand_dunes.html
+3
Level 37
Jun 25, 2018
Norway???
+5
Level 78
Jun 25, 2018
The Wikipedia page listing all countries of the world by area gives a figure of 323,802 square km for Norway, but I just noticed they list Svalbard separately for some reason. This figure is used in other featured quizzes too though, so I'll leave it up to the Quizmaster.
+1
Level 50
Jun 25, 2018
Wow. That's a really interesting quiz. Love it.
+1
Level 88
Jun 25, 2018
I am just picturing the camel caravan crossing the sweltering Great Canadian Desert...
+14
Level 67
Jun 25, 2018
Deserts are defined by dryness, not by heat. Antarctica is a desert. I would guess that parts of the far north of Canada qualify as desert as well.
+9
Level 75
Jun 28, 2023
Some jokes are characterised by dryness as well, they tend not to work too well on the internet...
+1
Level 74
Jun 26, 2018
What about Turkey?
+8
Level 78
Jul 2, 2018
There seems to be a desert area at the border with Iran, near Mt. Ararat.
+2
Level 22
Jul 2, 2018
France is not bigger than Ukraine
+8
Level 78
Jul 2, 2018
Metropolitan France isn't, but, considering all its territories, it is.
+3
Level 71
May 21, 2022
In that case, parts of western Réunion are semi-arid due to rain shadow, such as city of Le Port.
+11
Level 65
Jan 25, 2023
That doesn't make it a desert, though
+2
Level 65
Sep 20, 2019
Specify if you are including territories - the island of Nuku Hiva in French Polynesia is treelessly dry in the north and well below the level you qualify as desert, making it so that France does not count.
+6
Level 78
Sep 21, 2019
It seems that, according to Wikipedia, the "desert" part of Nuku-Hiva gets 510 mm of rain per year. I don't know how the rain is distributed throughout the year, but even in the most "desert-like" scenario the annual rainfall would have to be below 420 mm for it to classify by the criteria used here.
+1
Level 71
Oct 5, 2020
The extreme northern horn of Scandinavia, including part of Sweden and a tiny part of Finland, gets less than 400 mm of rainfall a year, so, I think this logic is then inconsistent to include Finland and Sweden but to omit other northern countries like Russia and Canada. No?
+11
Level 78
Oct 5, 2020
@bostjan: The Koppen classification for a desert climate that is used here depends on three variables: precipitation, its yearly distribution and average annual temperature. Low temperatures in polar regions counteract low rainfall, which is why the bitterly cold arctic Russian town of Verkhoyansk is surrounded by forest in spite of only 180 mm of annual precipitation. Russia and Canada are not excluded because of their polar regions, but because of dry areas near their southern borders.
+1
Level 63
Mar 26, 2020
Ive seen pictures from the CAR and it looked like a desert country.
+1
Level 86
Oct 3, 2020
Yeah, satellite images of the far northeastern part of the CAR sure look like desert.
+7
Level ∞
Jun 28, 2023
Most of it is tropical savanna with a very small part hot semi-arid climate (still not a desert)
+1
Level 44
Oct 3, 2020
The only i knew was Paraguay? :)
+1
Level 69
Oct 3, 2020
Very cool quiz, lots of surprises!
+1
Level 67
Oct 3, 2020
Typical for my mind. I know almost all of the top half of the list (list of how often guessed), knew barely half of the 2nd part....but had Paraguay the first try. Sometimes i don't get my own logic. :P
+1
Level 50
Oct 3, 2020
I didnt realise Monaco had a desert... same with nauru and many other countries alike...??
+15
Level 74
Oct 4, 2020
TIl monaco and nauru are bigger than 300k square km
+5
Level 62
May 26, 2022
Someone didn't read the title...
+4
Level 58
Oct 3, 2020
Madagascar has a desert?
+3
Level 78
Oct 4, 2020
There is a small area with desert conditions on the southwest coast.
+1
Level 82
Oct 5, 2020
I have absolutely no idea what tactics to use for this one...
+7
Level 71
Mar 20, 2021
No Saudi Arabia?

(Haha, I'm just kidding, please don't kill me...)

+2
Level 48
May 1, 2023
Wait, there is no desert in Central African Republic? What is it´s climate then? And why it is technically inhabitable?
+14
Level 69
May 18, 2023
the climate is bullets
+1
Level 48
Nov 10, 2023
Second time taking this quiz. Second time CAR being the one I missed. Second time surprised, it has no deserts. Maybe I will remember for my next attempt.

BryceBelhumeur - that's a really good one, but generally speaking such a fierce and unsolvable internal conflicts tends to happen in desert or mountainous areas, where it is not geographically possible to form a strong government (Yemen, Afghanistan, Saharan countries like Mali or Niger etc.), so that is, why I assumed.

+8
Level 74
Jun 28, 2023
Would not have expected South Sudan
+2
Level 90
Jun 28, 2023
Same. I imagined it to be entirely sand and deserts. Only one I missed.
+2
Level 72
Oct 11, 2023
Regular Sudan is the arid one, except for the southern bits. South Sudan has a load of swamps and tropical forests.

...Except for a few tiny pixels in the south-easternmost extreme of the country, near Ethiopia and Kenya. It's in disputed territory, so I'll leave this to Quizmaster/georgekotz to decide.

+1
Level 74
Jun 29, 2023
Germany should not be on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servicew%C3%BCste
+2
Level 52
Oct 11, 2023
It is very surprising that both Congos don't have deserts but Canada, United Kingdom, and Iceland do. Great Quiz
+3
Level 72
Oct 11, 2023
Iceland isn't large enough to be on the quiz.
+3
Level 75
Oct 11, 2023
...and neither is the UK.
+1
Level 72
Oct 12, 2023
True. I always seem to think that we're a bit bigger than we really are.
+2
Level 71
Oct 12, 2023
After I tried Sudan I was like "no way it could be South Sudan"
+1
Level 45
Oct 13, 2023
Isn't there a desert on Maranhao coast some small desert in brazil?
+2
Level 78
Oct 13, 2023
There used to be a small patch of desert depicted on the Wikipedia map near the northeast corner of Brazil (not on the coast though), in the so-called Sertão area, so Brazil was not in the initial version of the quiz, but apparently it's gone now. It's probably marginal, as for example the city of Petrolândia gets a yearly average of 430 mm of rain against a limit of around 380 mm for desert classification. I haven't found data for a specific place or city that would qualify though, so the current version is probably more accurate after all.
+1
Level 88
Jan 3, 2024
Hmm, Sweden and Finland are on here, but not... Ah, I can recall trekking across the great Norwegian desert on my trusty camel, sand blowing everywhere...
+1
Level 46
Feb 28, 2024
Great quiz. I needed more time today
+1
Level 69
Mar 19, 2024
No Australia? Wow, that's surprising.
+1
Level 80
Feb 8, 2025
You gotta get out more.
+1
Level 68
Jul 3, 2024
I’m shocked by South Sudan. It’s proximity to the Sahara desert, and it’s northern counterpart Sudan, which is basically a giant desert, really make it hard for me to fully understand how South Sudan, and even CAR, don’t have any deserts.
+2
Level 71
Oct 30, 2024
Do the Philippines not make this quiz because of size or desert?
+2
Level 78
Oct 30, 2024
There are no deserts in the Philippines, but Wikipedia lists the country's area as 300,000 square km (looks like a rough approximation, but that is the listed number), so it's slightly below the cutoff.
+1
Level 54
Dec 9, 2024
Brazil does have a desert in the Northeast Bahia region, it's a very dry region with tons of scrubland.
+1
Level 57
Jan 6, 2025
I don't think EF climates should be considered deserts in this quiz. The only requirement for an EF climate is that no month has an average temperature over 0°C, rainfall isn't considered.
+1
Level 53
Feb 5, 2025
How on earth did I miss Japan
+1
Level 67
Feb 5, 2025
I find it really sad that these countries don't eat dessert.
+1
Level 37
Feb 5, 2025
no way canada has a desert
+1
Level 45
Feb 5, 2025
Yes, look at the points on the quiz. It says this quiz includes cold deserts and polar deserts, which are made obvious when you look at Canada’s northern areas.
+2
Level 77
Feb 5, 2025
Mozambique?
+3
Level 78
Feb 6, 2025
There used to be desert areas in the south of Mozambique in a previous iteration of the map, but they're gone now. Thanks for noticing, resubmitted.
+3
Level 66
Feb 5, 2025
Hi ! Brazil seems to have some deserts in the source (red dots in the northeast)
+2
Level 78
Feb 6, 2025
Ηi, thanks for noticing! As I wrote in a comment above, those desert areas in Brazil had been edited out of the map, but they seem to have reappeared now. I'll edit and resubmit the quiz accordingly.
+5
Level ∞
Feb 6, 2025
Shoot. I didn't realize this was on the front page yesterday.

Sorry to all for resetting the stats.

+1
Level 69
Feb 7, 2025
Oh glad I'm not crazy here. I swore I took it yesterday
+2
Level 21
Feb 6, 2025
For those wondering:

Russia has BWk and EF

Canada has EF

Norway has EF on Svalbard

+1
Level 77
Feb 6, 2025
The most surprising thing in this quiz is that Paraguay is apparently bigger than Germany or Japan.
+1
Level 83
Feb 6, 2025
You can blame the Mercator projection for that. Paraguay has relatively little distortion due to its proximity to the equator, while European countries and Japan are stretched because of their high latitudes.
+1
Level 69
Feb 7, 2025
This map seems to show that the area around Kilimanjaro seems to have EF (polar desert) classification?
+1
Level 81
Feb 7, 2025
very surprised by some of the african countries. that's why I love jetpunk . . . always learning :)
+1
Level 81
Feb 7, 2025
Now all you need to learn is some capitalization.
+2
Level 91
Feb 7, 2025
South Sudan? Well blow me down, who’d have thunk it?
+1
Level 81
Feb 7, 2025
Popeye, maybe?
+1
Level 93
Feb 7, 2025
I got it just because I was listing all of the African countries large enough to qualify, but I was shocked to see it included.
+1
Level 48
Feb 7, 2025
hi, im pretty sure indonesia has deserts
+1
Level 67
Feb 7, 2025
Great quiz! Made me think!
+1
Level 78
Feb 8, 2025
There is a small desert in Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleshky_Sands
+1
Level 78
Feb 9, 2025
Much like similar places mentioned in other comments, this is not a true desert. What counts here is climate, not the presence of sand dunes.
+1
Level 69
Feb 9, 2025
18/20 - I didn't forget Paraguay and CAR, but was pretty sure they don't qualify... :-(