The Kharan Desert ( ur, صحرائے خاران) is a

sandy Sandy may refer to: People and fictional characters *Sandy (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Sandy (surname), a list of people *Sandy (singer), Brazilian singer and actress Sandy Leah Lima (born 1983) * (Sandy) ...

and mountainous desert situated in

Balochistan province Balochistan (; bal, بلۏچستان; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It shares land ...

in south-western

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

.The desert covers an area of about 36,000 square kilometers, making it one of the largest deserts in Pakistan. The desert is known for its arid climate and harsh conditions, with high temperatures and very little rainfall. It is home to a variety of

plants Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

Tree
and animals that are adapted to the desert environment, including the fabled Kharan camel, which is native to the region. This desert was the site of Pakistan's second nuclear test, Chagai-II, which was carried out on 30 May 1998. The land is not fit for agriculture due to low irrigation. The occupation is mainly agriculture and farming. The terrain is mainly dry, grey-brown sand that stretches out.

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

travelled through this region. He had entered the

Indus Valley The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kash ...

from the historic

Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass (خیبر درہ) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by traversi ...

and after defeating Porus, in the fourth century BC, he made his way back to

Babylonia Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state ...

and passed through the Kharan desert (It was known as

Gedrosia Gedrosia (; el, Γεδρωσία) is the Hellenized name of the part of coastal Balochistan that roughly corresponds to today's Makran. In books about Alexander the Great and his successors, the area referred to as Gedrosia runs from the Indu ...

at that time), in an attempt to compare himself against

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...

who had once passed through the desert. The terrain of the desert is mostly flat, with sand dunes and rocky outcrops. The climate is arid, with high temperatures and very little rainfall. The desert is bounded by the Dasht River to the north and the Chagai Hills to the west. To the south and east, the desert borders the Balochistan Plateau.

References

Deserts of Pakistan {{Pakistan-geo-stub

See also

References