Sonoran cad
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Within the southern Sonoran Desert in Mexico is found the Gran Desierto de Altar, with the Reserva de la Biosfera el Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar ('Pinacate National Park' in Mexico), extending 2,000 square kilometers (770 sq mi) of desert and mountainous regions. Many ecologists consider Shreve's Vizcaíno and Magdalena regions, which lie on the western side of the Baja California Peninsula, to be a separate ecoregion, the Baja California Desert. In the 1957 publication Vegetation of the Sonoran Desert, Forrest Shreve divided the Sonoran Desert into seven regions according to characteristic vegetation: Lower Colorado Valley, Arizona Upland, Plains of Sonora, Foothills of Sonora, Central Gulf Coast, Vizcaíno Region, and Magdalena Region. The desert's sub-regions include the Colorado Desert of southeastern California and the Yuma Desert east of the north-to-south section of the Colorado River in southwest Arizona. To the south the Sonoran–Sinaloan transition subtropical dry forest is the transition zone from the Sonoran Desert to the tropical dry forests of the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The Chihuahuan Desert and Sierra Madre Occidental pine–oak forests are at higher elevations to the east. To coniferous Arizona Mountains forests are to the northeast. To the north in California and northwest Arizona, the Sonoran Desert transitions to the colder-winter, higher-elevation Mojave, Great Basin, and Colorado Plateau deserts. The Gulf of California xeric scrub ecoregion lies south of the Sonoran desert on the Gulf of California slope of the Baja California Peninsula. It is bounded on the west by the Peninsular Ranges, which separate it from the California chaparral and woodlands (northwest) and Baja California Desert (Vizcaino subregion, central and southeast) ecoregions of the Pacific slope. The Sonoran desert wraps around the northern end of the Gulf of California, from Baja California Sur ( El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve in central and Pacific west coast, Central Gulf Coast subregion on east to southern tip), north through much of Baja California, excluding the central northwest mountains and Pacific west coast, through southeastern California and southwestern and southern Arizona to western and central parts of Sonora. This creates an extreme contrast between aridity and moisture. The Sonoran Desert is clearly distinct from nearby deserts (e.g., the Great Basin, Mojave, and Chihuahuan deserts) because it provides subtropical warmth in winter and two seasons of rainfall (in contrast, for example, to the Mojave's dry summers and cold winters). The desert contains a variety of unique endemic plants and animals, notably, the saguaro ( Carnegiea gigantea) and organ pipe cactus ( Stenocereus thurberi). In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic province of the Madrean Region of southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic realm of the northern Western Hemisphere. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi). It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. The Sonoran Desert ( Spanish: Desierto de Sonora) is a North American desert and ecoregion that covers large parts of the southwestern United States (in Arizona and California), as well as the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. Sierra Juárez and San Pedro Mártir pine-oak forests.California montane chaparral and woodlands.