Registan Desert

Afghanistan, Afghanistan

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The Registan Desert (also called the Sistan Desert) is Afghanistan’s largest desert, an extremely arid plateau in the country’s south-east that stretches roughly 300 km long and up to 200 km wide between Helmand and Kandahar provinces and extends toward the borders of Pakistan and Iran.

It covers about 50,000 km² and consists mainly of small red sand hills 15–30 m (50–100 ft) high, sandy plains and open rocky or clay-covered ground, with underlying ancient transverse dunes shaped by strong west-to-east winds. The climate is continental and subtropical, very cold in winter and extremely hot in summer, with average annual rainfall of only about 100 mm, making it one of the harshest environments in Afghanistan.

The desert is sparsely populated by Baluch and Pashtun nomads but has been gradually encroaching on surrounding agricultural land, and a severe drought in 1998 displaced around 100,000 nomadic people from the region. Bounded by the Helmand River to the west and its tributary the Arghestan to the north, the Registan is part of the larger Registan–North Pakistan sandy desert ecoregion and supports mainly shrubs, some endemic reptiles and important bird habitat, including the goitered gazelle, though many animals have become rare due to hunting.