The Atacama covers approximately 105,000 square kilometres in northern Chile, rising to 128,000 square kilometres if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. It is generally regarded as the driest non-polar desert in the world, with average annual rainfall around 15 millimetres per year. Some areas have recorded no significant rainfall between 1570 and 1971. Aridity results from the desert's position between two mountain chains — the Andes to the east and the Chilean Coast Range to the west — both of sufficient height to block moisture from the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, creating a double rain shadow. The cool north-flowing Humboldt Current reinforces the effect.
Elevation varies considerably across the Atacama. The intermediate depression between the coastal range and the Andes forms a series of enclosed basins at lower altitudes. To the east, the desert grades into the Central Andean dry puna above 3,000 metres, with some rally stages reaching 4,000 metres or above. The Salar de Atacama, a large salt flat in the southern portion of the desert, and the dune systems around the city of Copiapó in the south were among the most regularly used competitive environments during Dakar Rally stages.
The Dakar Rally included Chilean Atacama stages in its South American editions from 2009 to 2019. The rally was organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation and ran primarily through Argentina and Chile, with Peru incorporated from 2013 onwards. Atacama stages offered terrain markedly different from the Peruvian coastal dune fields: the Chilean sections combined sandy dune passages in the outskirts of Copiapó with hard-packed pampas crossings, salt flat navigation, and rocky canyon descents. The 2013 Dakar Rally, which ran over fifteen days and crossed Peru, Chile, and Argentina, exemplified the mixed terrain profile that became characteristic of the South American era.
Regional events including the Lower Atacama Rally, Lower Chile Rally, and Patagonia-Atacama Rally have also used the desert's terrain. The Lower Atacama and its successor events were smaller-scale rally raids that drew on the same landscape features as the Dakar, attracting competitors seeking desert racing experience at a lower logistical scale.
Several landscape features of the Atacama define its character as a rally terrain. The Pampa del Tamarugal, a broad flatland in the northern section, provides high-speed liaison and competitive passages. Sandy dune systems on the desert's southern margins around Copiapó offer the closest Atacama equivalent to the Saharan or Peruvian dune fields. The region's salt flats, including the Salar de Atacama, require navigation across flat, featureless surfaces where disorientation is a genuine risk and hidden salt crust can trap vehicles.
Altitude is a distinguishing factor: where Peruvian and Argentine stages might combine sea-level dunes with moderate climbs, Chilean Atacama stages regularly required competitors to manage vehicles at elevations where reduced air density affected engine performance and driver physiology. The desert's near-total absence of rainfall ensured reliable ground conditions throughout the January competition window.
The Atacama's extreme aridity and soil composition have made it a testing ground for instruments intended for Mars missions. NASA researchers have used the desert to calibrate and validate instruments designed to detect microbial life, given that some Atacama soils display near-zero biological activity comparable to Martian surface conditions. Its high altitude, dry air, and absence of light pollution have also made it one of the world's leading sites for astronomical observation, hosting major facilities including the Atacama Large Millimeter Array and the Very Large Telescope at Paranal. This scientific significance sits alongside the desert's importance as a mining region, with extensive copper, lithium, and sodium nitrate deposits having shaped its human history since the nineteenth century.
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