The Sonoran Desert is one of the largest protected desert areas in North America and is extremely rich in biodiversity (1). The desert contains every kind of biome due to its western location near 30° north latitude, include: the tundra, coniferous forest, temperate deciduous forest, grassland, chaparral, desert, thornscrub, and tropical forest. The map below represents the vast area the desert covers in green, stretching roughly around 100,000 square miles of land is located in a small part of southeastern California, southern Arizona, the majority of the Baja California Peninsula, and the eastern part of the Mexican state of Sonora (2). The desert in the Baja California area, alone, covers about 30,000 square miles (about one third of the desert), which is mainly dominated by chaparral and tundra biomes (2).
