Tatacoa Desert

The Tatacoa Desert (Spanish Desierto de la Tatacoa ) is a 330 km ² desert in Colombia. It is located in the northern part of the province of Huila in the valley of the Magdalena River, about 40 km north of the provincial capital, Neiva and only about 3 ° north of the equator.

The average temperature is above 28 ° C.

The Tatacoa desert owes its existence to the particular geographical situation between the two mountain ranges of Central and Eastern Cordillera of in a dry basin at the foot of the Eastern Cordillera. Thus it is in the double rain shadow and remains so in the rainy season usually low precipitation. Due to the high average temperature of the precipitation amount of about 1000 mm per year is not sufficient to compensate for the evaporation.

The name comes from a Tatacoa originally in the desert native, but now extinct species of snake.

• Desert in South America
• Geography (Colombia )
• Departamento de Huila