• The 20 million acres of the Mojave Desert touch four U.S. states – California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah – but is North America’s smallest desert.
• Two national parks are contained within the boundaries of the Mojave Desert – Death Valley National Park and Joshua Tree National Park, both established in 1994. More than 1.6 million tourists brave the heat every year to visit Death Valley. With 3.4 million acres, it’s the largest national park in the mainland United States. It’s the hottest and driest of all national parks, receiving less than 2 inches (5 cm) of rainfall a year. Between 1929 and 1953, there was absolutely no rainfall there. In July, 1913, the world’s hottest air temperature was recorded at Death Valley, 134 F (57 C.) Earlier that year, Death Valley’s lowest temperature was also recorded, when it dipped to 15 F (-10 C).
• Although sand dunes occupy less than one percent of the Mojave, the ones they have risen more than 680 feet (207 m) in the corner of Death Valley. These Eureka Dunes extend for 3 miles (4.8 km) with a width of 1 mile (1.6 km).
• The lowest point in North America, the Badwater Salt Pan in the midst of Death Valley, has an elevation of 282 feet (85.5 m) below sea level. The vast salt flats cover nearly 200 square miles (518 sq. km), made up primarily of simple table salt, sodium chloride, with surface crusts several inches thick. Summer visitors are likely to experience temperatures exceeding 120 F (49 C).
• The unusually-shaped Joshua Tree grows only in the Mojave Desert. These plants aren’t really trees at all, instead a species of yucca in the same subgroup as orchids. They grow very slowly, just 1 to 3 inches a year, but their lifespan reaches 150 years.
• The heat of the Mojave didn’t deter miners and prospectors from seeking their fortune for more than 100 years. Death Valley offered up deposits of gold, silver, copper, zinc, and lead beginning in the 1850s and wrapping up around 1915. It was non-metallic minerals, such as borax, talc, salt, and sulfur that were more profitable. The last active borax mine locked its doors in 2005. Remnants of several abandoned mine shafts and tunnels can be found by adventurous Death Valley visitors, along with the ghost towns of Calico, Oatman, and Kelso.
• About 2.5 million people live in the Mojave’s largest urban area, Las Vegas. A portion of Los Angeles’ metropolitan also falls within the desert’s borders, as well as the city of St. George, Utah. Death Valley is just 130 miles (209 km) northwest of Las Vegas.
• In the midst of the Mojave Desert lies the community of Baker, California, population 600, where you can view the world’s largest thermometer. Standing 134 feet (41 m) tall, the thermometer was built in 1991 to honor Death Valley’s world record temperature of 134 F (57 C) in 1913.
• Between 1931 and 1935, 5,000 men worked around the clock in the Mojave Desert to complete Hoover Dam on the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona. Accidents claimed the lives of 96 workers during construction.
• In 1977, film director George Lucas used Death Valley as the location of the fictional planet Tatooine in his megahit “Star Wars.”