The Atacama Desert is a desert plateau located on the Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a 1,600 km strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of 105,000 km2, which increases to 128,000 km2 if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, and the second driest overall, behind some specific spots within the McMurdo Dry Valleys.