Thar Desert
The Great Indian Desert, a densely peopled sand region straddling India and Pakistan
The Thar, also called the Great Indian Desert, is a sea of sand and scrub spread across roughly 264,000 square kilometres of northwestern India and southeastern Pakistan. What sets it apart from the world's other great deserts is people: it is by far the most densely populated desert on Earth, dotted with villages, herds, and the golden fortress city of Jaisalmer rising from the sands of Rajasthan. Here the desert is woven into daily life, its rhythms shaped by the brief, dramatic arrival of the summer monsoon.
The Thar is a subtropical desert of shifting dunes, scattered scrub, and gravel plains, much of it covered by sand that the wind heaps into ridges. Most of its scant rainfall comes in a short monsoon burst between July and September, when the parched land briefly greens. Temperatures soar past 50 degrees Celsius in summer and can fall near freezing on winter nights. The desert supports surprising wildlife, including the blackbuck, the chinkara gazelle, and the great Indian bustard, one of the world's most endangered birds.
For millennia the Thar has been crossed by caravans and shaped by the desert kingdoms of Rajasthan, whose Rajput rulers built the magnificent forts and havelis of Jodhpur, Bikaner, and Jaisalmer. Camel herding, hardy millet farming, and trade have long sustained its people, and the Indira Gandhi Canal has more recently brought irrigation to part of the region. The desert remains a cultural heartland of vivid textiles, folk music, and the annual desert festivals that draw visitors to its dunes.