where are the atacama desert located on a map
The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a plateau in South America, covering a 1000-km (600-mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is the driest nonpolar desert in the world. According to estimates, the Atacama Desert occupies 105,000 km (41,000 sq mi), or 128,000 km (49,000 sq mi) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes (salares), sand, and felsic lava that flows towards the Andes.