Wliich one of the following is the driest desert of the world ?

The Atacama Desert, located in northern Chile, is widely recognized as the driest non-polar desert on Earth [1]. Its extreme aridity is caused by a combination of factors: the rain shadow effect of the Andes Mountains, the presence of stable subtropical high-pressure cells, and the cold Humboldt Current off the coast, which suppresses rainfall through a desiccating effect [2]. While most deserts receive less than 250 mm of rain annually, the hyper-arid core of the Atacama averages less than 2 mm per year, with some weather stations having never recorded rain in decades [2]. In contrast, the Sahara, Gobi, and Kalahari deserts, while arid, receive significantly higher average annual precipitation [5]. The Atacama's unique geography between the Pacific Coast Range and the Andes creates a 'true desert' environment where evaporation vastly exceeds the minute moisture provided by occasional coastal fogs [5].

Sources

1. [1] Physical Geography by PMF IAS, Manjunath Thamminidi, PMF IAS (1st ed.) > Chapter 30: Climatic Regions > Hot Desert Climate (BWh: B – Dry, W – Desert, h – low latitude) > p. 441
2. [2] Environment and Ecology, Majid Hussain (Access publishing 3rd ed.) > Chapter 3: MAJOR BIOMES > Hot Desert Biome > p. 15
3. [3] Certificate Physical and Human Geography , GC Leong (Oxford University press 3rd ed.) > Chapter 18: The Hot Desert and Mid-Latitude Desert Climate > Distribution > p. 173
4. [5] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11237387/