10 Countries with the Lowest Rainfall

If you are looking for countries with harsh weather conditions to live in, then our list of the 10 countries with the lowest rainfall, should provide you with some good information. Though these countries with the hot desert climate definitely have the unpleasant weather throughout the year, you might be interested in the countries on the opposite side of the climate spectrum. In that case, take a look at our list of 10 Countries with the Highest Rainfall.

Rainfall is a more common term for precipitation, and precipitation is defined as “the amount, usually expressed in millimeters or inches of liquid water depth, of the water substance that has fallen at a given point over a specified period of time.” Main forms of precipitation are rain, drizzle, snow, sleet, freezing rain, and hail.

An area of land with extremely low amounts of annual precipitation is effectively a desert, so we can expect that our list will consist of countries situated in deserts. A desert can be a polar, subtropical, cold winter or cool coastal desert, depending on its geographic location. The largest desert in the world is the Antarctic polar desert, followed by the Arctic polar desert. If you are trying to find the place on earth with the lowest rainfall in the world, it is very likely that you will stumble upon the information that it is Antarctica, specifically McMurdo Dry Valleys, and that it has 0 mm of rainfall in depth per year. However, that information is technically incorrect, because rainfall is synonymous to precipitation, and Dry Valleys, in fact, do receive some snow, with values ranging from 3 to 50 mm water equivalent depending on the part of the Valley. Dry Valleys get only a few drops of rain, so they are the place with the lowest amount of rain.

The place with the lowest precipitation on earth is Arica, a port city in Chile, with 0.6 mm annually, and being that it is on the northern edge of the Atacama desert, the driest non-polar desert in the world we are not surprised. In the USA, the state with the lowest rainfall is the Nevada with 9.5 inches (241 mm), of actual rain given that precipitation measurements for snow are given separately for the Nevada.

The driest city in the USA is Yuma in Arizona, having only 2.65 inches (67.31 mm) of rainfall annually It is also the sunniest city in the world, receiving about 4,015 hours of sunshine out of possible 4,456 hours of daylight each year.

Two largest subtropical deserts are the Sahara and the Arabian desert. The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, comparable in size to the United States, covers about 31 percent of Africa, spanning over Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia and a territory under dispute called Western Sahara. The name “Sahara” comes from Arabic language and is derived from the plural word for desert. The Sahara is mostly rocky terrain, with sand dunes covering only a small part of it. The Arabian Desert covers most of the Arabian Peninsula, the largest peninsula in the world, effectively extending the Sahara Desert over it and bringing hot desert climate. On the peninsula are Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, also Iraq and Jordan have parts of their territory on it, so some of these countries will likely show up on our list of the 10 countries with the lowest rainfall.

For our list we are using data set from the world bank, for the year 2014, being that it is the latest data available, and ranking countries by average precipitation in depth in millimeters per year as expected.

10. State of Kuwait – Average Precipitation 121 mm/year

Infrequent thunderstorms during the spring season are probably the only precipitation Kuwait receives throughout the year. Kuwait also holds the record in highest recorded temperature in Asia of 129.9 °F (54.4 °C), having extremely hot summers. Kuwait was the first country in the world to start using desalination as a primary source of fresh water.

9. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan – 111 mm/year

With many variations in climate, going from Mediterranean to that of an arid desert, Jordan is abundant with various plants with an estimated number of more than 2,300 species. Average temperatures during summer from May to September, are around 90 °F (32 °C) with possible peaks exceeding 104 °F (40 °C ), so if you are planning a trip be sure to skip period between July and August, as that is the hottest. Even though some western elevated areas of Jordan now and then even get a snowfall during the winter, a good part of this country is an arid desert as shown by the low average annual precipitation. Let’s se what’s next on our list of countries with the lowest rainfall.

8. Islamic Republic of Mauritania – 92 mm/year

With about three-quarters of its land being desert or semi-desert, it’s no wonder that Mauritania is on our list of the 10 countries with the Lowest Rainfall. In the part of the country that is covered by Sahara, diurnal variations in temperature are extreme, for example during the period from May to July they range from 60.8 °F (16 °C) in the morning to more than 120.2 °F (49 °C) by the afternoon. In an attempt to fight expanding desert, the Mauritanian government planted 250,000 palm trees, as a barrier to protect capital city of Nouakchott. In west-central Mauritania is the Richat Structure, also known as the Eye of the Sahara, an eroded, elliptical dome with a diameter of 40 kilometers (25 mi). Its mystical beauty was discovered during the Gemini IV space mission in 1965.

7. People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria – 89 mm/year

The country actually gets decent amounts of rainfall along the coast, up to 670 mm annually, and in northeastern parts of Algeria, it gets up to 1,000 mm in years with rich precipitation. The tenth largest country in the world and the largest country in Africa gets low average annual precipitation due to four-fifths of it being a desert. In the desert region in the summer temperatures get up to 110 °F (43.3 °C).

6. Kingdom of Bahrain – 83 mm/year

Getting the dust storms from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, carried by the northwesterly winds, and having summer temperatures that reach up to 122 °F (50 °C) this country consisting of many islands is not a pleasant place to live. Only 2.82 percent of this land is suitable for growing crops, and 92 percent is a desert. No wonder it ended up on our list of countries with the lowest rainfall.

5. United Arab Emirates – 78 mm/year

The UAE coastal area gets less than 120 mm of rainfall annually, and most of the country is… well, you surely know by now – a hot desert. The coastal region gets violent dust storms from time to time and during July and August average maximum temperatures are above 113 °F (45 °C). To complete the harsh weather conditions, there is a humid southeastern wind during the late summer months.

4. State of Qatar – 74 mm/year

Sudden and short thunderstorms during winter months are most of the rainfall that Qatar gets. Like most of the countries on the list, Qatar has super hot summers, with maximum temperatures reaching 104 °F (40 °C) and above, and of course sandstorms.

3. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – 59 mm/year

Being that Saudi Arabia is located in the Arabian Desert, it is no wonder that it got on our list of countries with the lowest rainfall. In the southern part of Saudi Arabia is Rub’ al Khali, the largest contiguous sand desert in the world that is also a part of the larger Arabian Desert. Summer temperatures can reach as high as 129 °F (54 °C). The Asir region is the only part of Saudi Arabia that is not in a desert climate and it gets an average of 300 mm of rainfall in a period from October to March, thanks to Indian Ocean monsoons. The city of Ras Al-Khair has the largest desalination plant in the world, which is able to deliver 1.025 million cubic meters of desalinated water annually.

2. Libya – 56mm/year

Most of Libya, one of the countries with the lowest rainfall, is covered in desert, except for northern regions that are lucky to have a Mediterranean climate. The Jabal al Akhdar (Green Mountain) zone of Cyrenaica is where annual rainfall can reach up to 600 mm (23.6 in); however, all other areas of the country receive less, and in the Sahara Desert even less than 50 mm (1.97 in) occurs, resulting in less than 2 percent of the territory being fertile ground. The Libyan Desert has an average daytime temperature of 122 °F (50 °C) and above, and with parts of it never getting any rainfall in decades, it is one of the places with the roughest climate in the world.

1. Arab Republic of Egypt – 51mm/year

This is probably the best known of all the countries on the list thanks to its Pyramids, and probably the first one most people think of when remembering a country in a desert. The majority of Egypt’s landscape consists of parts of the Sahara Desert and parts of the Libyan Desert; therefore, most of its population does not have much choice but to live along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta. During spring or in the early summer, a hot dry wind called the Khamaseen blows and brings the scorching sand and dust from the deserts in the south. The Khamaseen can increase daytime temperatures greatly and sometimes even over 122 °F (50 °C), while also dropping relative humidity to 5 percent or less. Knowing that 3 percent of Egypt’s territory is home to 98 percent of its population because the rest of the land is an arid desert with a few oases, we proclaim Egypt the winner and end our list of the 10 countries with the lowest rainfall.