Dasht-e Kavir

Dasht E Kavir

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Dasht-e Kavir

Dasht-e Kavir (??? ???? in Persian

Persian language

name=Persian|nativename=|pronunciation=[f??r'si]|image=|caption=Farsi in Perso-Arabic script |states= Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain....
), also known as Kavir-e Namak or Great Salt Desert is a large desert lying in the middle of the Plateau of Iran. It is about 800 kilometers (497 mi) long and 320 kilometers (198 mi) wide with a total surface area of about 77,600 square kilometers (~30,000 mi²).

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Encyclopedia

Dasht-e Kavir (??? ???? in Persian

Persian language

Alborz

Alborz , also written as Alburz or Elburz, is a mountain range in northern Iran stretching from the borders of Armenia in the northwest to the southern end of the Caspian Sea, and ending in the east at the borders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan....
mountain range in the north-west to the Dasht-e Lut

Dasht-e Lut

Dasht-e Lut, also spelled Dasht-i-Lut, is a large salt desert in southeastern Iran.Iran is climatically part of the Afro-Asian belt of deserts that stretch from the Cape Verde islands off West Africa all the way to Mongolia near Beijing, China....
("Emptiness Desert") in the south-east and is partitioned between the Iranian provinces

Provinces of Iran

Iran is subdivided into thirty provinces , each governed from a local center, usually the largest local city, which is called the capital of that province....
of Khorasan

Khorasan

Khorasan Khorasan is famous world wide for its saffron and Berberis#Zereshk which are produced in the southern cities of the province. Production is more than 170 tons per year....
, Semnan

Semnan Province

Semnan is one of the 30 provinces of Iran of Iran. It is in the north of the country, and its center is Semnan, Iran. The province of Semnan covers an area of 96,816 square kilometers and stretches along the Alborz mountain range and borders to Dasht-e Kavir desert in its southern parts....
, Tehran

Tehran Province

Tehran Province is one of the provinces of Iran of Iran. It covers on area of 18,909 square kilometers and is located to the north of the central plateau of Iran....
, Isfahan and Yazd

Yazd

Yazd , is the capital of Yazd province in Iran, "the second most ancient and historic city in the world" and a centre of Zoroastrian culture. The city is located some 175 miles southeast of Isfahan ....
. It is named after the salt marshes (kavirs) located there.

Climate and structure

The Dasht-e Kavir's climate is almost rainless and the area is very arid. Temperatures can reach 50 °C in summer, and the average temperature in January is 22 °C. Day and night temperatures during a year can differ up to 70 °C. Rain usually falls in winter.

The desert soil is covered with sand and pebbles; there are marsh

Marsh

In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland which is subject to frequent or continuous flood . Typically the water is shallow and features Poaceaees, Juncaceaees, Phragmites, typhas, Cyperaless, and other herbaceous plants....
es, lake

Lake

A lake is a terrain feature , a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin and moves slowly if it moves at all....
s and wadi

Wadi

Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley; in some cases it may refer to a dry Stream bed that contains water only during times of heavy rain....
s. The hot temperatures cause extreme vaporization, which leaves the marshes and mud grounds with large crusts of salt. Heavy storms frequently occur and they can cause sand hills reaching up to 40 m in height. Some parts of Dasht- e Kavir have a more steppe

Steppe

In physical geography, a steppe , pronounced , is a grassland plain without trees . The prairie can be considered a steppe. It may be semi-desert, or covered with Poaceae or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude....
-like appearance.

Wildlife

Vegetation in the Dasht-e Kavir is adapted to the hot and arid climate as well as to the saline soil in which it is rooted. Common plant species like shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
s and grass

Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
es can only be found in some valleys and on mountain tops. The most widespread plant is mugwort.

The Persian ground jay

Ground jay

The ground jays or ground choughs belong to a distinct group of the passerine order of birds in the genus Podoces of the crow family Corvidae....
is a bird species living in some parts of the desert plateaus, along with Houbara bustard

Houbara Bustard

The Houbara Bustard, Chlamydotis undulata, is a large bird in the bustard family....
s, lark

Lark

Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. All species occur in the Old World, including northern and eastern Australia; only one, the Shore Lark, has spread to North America, where it is called the Horned Lark....
s and sandgrouse

Sandgrouse

The sandgrouse are a family , Pteroclididae, of 16 bird species, the only living members of the order Pteroclidiformes. They are restricted to treeless open country in the Old World, such as plains and semi-deserts....
s.

Persian gazelle

GAZelle

A GAZelle is a series of mid-sized trucks, vans and buses made by Russian car manufacturer GAZ. GAZelles are similar to the later launched GAZ Sobol and GAZ Valdai line of vans and light trucks....
s live in parts of steppe and desert areas of the central plateau. Wild sheep

Sheep

#REDIRECT Domestic sheep...
, goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae....
s and leopard

Leopard

The leopard is a member of the Felidae biological family and the smallest of the four "Panthera" in the genus Panthera; the other three are the tiger, lion and jaguar....
s are common in mountainous areas. Night life brings on wild cats, wolves, fox

Fox

A fox is an animal belonging to any one of about 27 species of small to medium-sized Canidae, characterized by possessing a long, narrow snout, and a bushy tail, or brush....
es, and other carnivore

Carnivore

A carnivore , meaning 'meat eater' , is any animal with a diet consisting mainly of meat, whether it comes from animals living or dead .In a more general sense, an animal may be considered a carnivore if it prefers feeding on animal matter over plant matter....
s. In some parts of the desert, the Persian wild ass and sometimes even the Asiatic Cheetah

Asiatic Cheetah

The Asiatic Cheetah is now also known as the Iranian Cheetah and although recently extinct in India it is also known as the Indian Cheetah....
can be seen. Lizard

Lizard

Lizards are a large and widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 5,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains....
s and snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate legless carnivore reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears....
s live in different places in the central plateau.

Cultivation

The extreme heat and many storms in Dasht-e Kavir cause extensive erosion, which makes it almost impossible to cultivate the lands. The desert is almost uninhabited and knows little exploitation. Camel and sheep breeding and agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
are the sources of living to the few people living on its soil. Human settling is restricted to some oases

Oasis

In geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source. Oases also provide habitat for animals and even humans if the area is big enough....
, where wind-blocking housing constructions are raised to deal with the harsh weather conditions. For irrigation, Iranians developed a sophisticated system of water-wells known as "Qanat

Qanat

A qanat or Kariz is a water management system used to provide a reliable supply of water to human settlements or for irrigation in hot, arid and semi-arid climates....
s." These are still in use, and modern globally-used water-revenue systems are based on their techniques.

Features

Central in the desert lies the Kavir Buzurg (Great Kavir), which is about 320 km long and 160 km wide. In the west, a salt lake called Darya-ye Namak (1800 km²) can be found. It contains some large salt plates in a mosaic-like shape. It is part of a 4,000 km² protected ecological zone, the Kavir National Park

Kavir National Park

Kavir National Park is a protected ecological zone in northern Iran. It has an area of 4,000 square kilometers . The park is located 120 kilometers south of Tehran and 100 kilometers east of Qom, and it sits on the western end of one of Iran's two major deserts, the Dasht-e Kavir ....
. One of the most desolate places of Dasht-e Kavir is the Rig-e Jenn

Rig-e Jenn

The Rig-e Jenn is a vast area of sand dunes in the middle of Dasht-e Kavir, Iran's central desert in the border region of the Semnan province and Isfahan provinces....
.

Dasht-e Kavir

Climate and structure

Wildlife

Cultivation

Features

See also