Deserts don't have to be sandy in fact anywhere that receives less than ten inches of rain per year is considered a desert. So really many areas that don't seem sandy like many deserts really are deserts. A lot of deserts are even snowy and icy such as the arctic (more information on arctic next page) and a couple of deserts even have rocky terrain where the tops of rocks are polished smoothed by the sand (desert pavement). Although most deserts are indeed very sandy and possibly with rock formations (shown above). because of only limited rainfall deserts can have a lot of water such as the arctic which has frozen water there might even be areas of the ocean that are considered deserts. In the rainfall map (as shown below) there is actually several places in the ocean that receive less than ten inches (254 mm) of rainfall (highlighted in the purple, blue, green, and yellow ). It is pretty amazing that so many regions could be considered deserts that have lots of water. A great example of this is the arctic desert which has a lot of water in the frozen state that doesn't evaporate because it is frozen and not liquid.