Mojave Desert

Climate

The Mojave Desert receives less than 2 inches (51 mm) of rain a year and is generally between 2,000 and 5,000 feet (610 and 1,520 m) in elevation. The Mojave Desert also contains the Mojave National Preserve, as well as the lowest and hottest place in North America: Death Valley at 282 ft (86 m) below sea level, where the temperature often surpasses 120 °F (49 °C) from late June to early August. Zion National Park in Utah lies at the junction of the Mojave, the Great Basin Desert, and the Colorado Plateau. Despite its aridity, the Mojave (and particularly the Antelope Valley in its southwest) has long been a center of alfalfa production, fed by irrigation coming from groundwater and from the California Aqueduct.

Geography

Mojave desert in Landers, 30 mi (48 km) east of San Gorgonio Mountain, California.

See also: the categories Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert, Valleys of the Mojave Desert, and Lakes of the Mojave Desert.

The Mojave Desert is defined by numerous mountain ranges creating its xeric conditions. These ranges often create valleys, endorheic basins, salt pans, and seasonal saline lakes when precipitation is high enough. These mountain ranges and valleys are part of the Basin and Range Province and the Great Basin, a geologic area of crustal thinning which pulls open valleys over millions of years. Most of the valleys are internally drained (endorheic basins), so all precipitation that falls within the valley does not eventually flow to the ocean. Some of the Mojave (toward the east, in and around the Colorado River/Virgin River Gorge) is within a different geographic domain called the Colorado Plateau.

Cities and regions

While the Mojave Desert itself is sparsely populated, it has increasingly become urbanized in recent years.

The metropolitan areas include Las Vegas, the largest city in the Mojave with a metropolitan population of around 2.3 million in 2015; St. George is the northeasternmost metropolitan area in the Mojave, with a population of around 200,000 in 2020, and is located at the convergence of the Mojave, Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Lancasteris the largest California city in the desert; over 850,000 people live in areas of the Mojave attached to the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, including Palmdale and Lancaster (referred to as the Antelope Valley), Victorville, Apple Valley and Hesperia(referred to as the Victor Valley) attached to the Inland Empiremetropolitan area, the 14th largest in the nation.