What is the extremely dry desert region along the west coast of South America known as?
The Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert is a virtually rainless
plateau in South America, covering a 966 km (600 mi) strip of land
on the Pacific coast of South America, west of the Andes mountains.
The Atacama is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many
other publications, the driest desert in the world. The rain shadow
on the leeward side of the Chilean Coast Range and the Andes keeps
this over 20 million-year-old desert[4] 50 times drier than
California's Death Valley. The Atacama occupies 181,300 square
kilometers (70,000 mi²) in northern Chile, composed mostly of salt
basins (salares), sand, and lava flows. information from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert