The Atacama Desert is a desert plateau on the Pacific coast of South America, stretching along a 1,600-kilometre-long (1,000-mile) strip of land in northern Chile, west of the Andes. It covers an area of 105,000 km2 (41,000 mi2), rising to 128,000 km2 (49,000 mi2) if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included.