Depression

Death Valley

Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America at 282 feet below sea level — and it lies in the afternoon shadow of Telescope Peak, 11,049 feet above it.

Source: nps.gov

Beneath Badwater lies more than 11,000 feet of accumulated sediment and salts. The valley itself only began to form about three million years ago.

Source: nps.gov

Find Death Valley on the map

The hottest air temperature on record

On 10 July 1913, Furnace Creek in Death Valley recorded an air temperature of 134°F (57°C), the hottest ever measured on Earth. The heat wave that produced it brought five days in a row at 129°F (54°C) or more.

Source: nps.gov

Why it gets so hot

The valley is a long, narrow basin 86 metres (282 feet) below sea level, walled in by high, steep mountains. Clear air and sparse plants let the sun heat the ground, and the rocks radiate that heat back into the valley. Warm air rises but cools before it can clear the mountain walls, then sinks back down, and as it sinks it is compressed and heated even further.

Source: nps.gov

Why it stays so dry

Death Valley averages less than 5 centimetres (2 inches) of rain a year. Storms from the Pacific have to cross four major mountain ranges to reach it, and each range wrings out more moisture as rain and snow on its western side, leaving the valley in a deep rain shadow.

Source: nps.gov

Summers that do not let up

The heat in Death Valley is long as well as intense. In the summer of 2001 it reached 100°F (38°C) or higher on 154 days in a row, and in 1917 it hit at least 120°F (49°C) on 43 consecutive days.

Source: nps.gov

Where it is

Location of Death Valley on a world map.

On the Atlas Quest map, the Death Valley label sits at 36.2° N, 116.8° W, in the Northern and Western Hemispheres.

Coordinates, names: Natural Earth, public domain.

Nearby places

The closest other places with pages here, measured between map label points:

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