Landforms and terrestrial features

Deseret Peak

Deseret Peak, 11,031 ft, is the highest summit of Utah's Stansbury Mountains in Tooele County, a Cambrian quartzite ultra-prominence peak (5,807 ft) at the center of the Deseret Peak Wilderness.

Desert: arid land with under about 25 cm annual precipitation covering roughly one third of Earth's land surface; includes hot, cold, and coastal types; threatened by irreversible desertification affecting up to 40% of land.

Deserts of Australia

The deserts of Australia, also called the Great Australian desert, form a largely contiguous arid region across the western and central interior, covering about 1,371,000 square kilometers.

Desventuradas Islands

Desventuradas Islands (Islas Desventuradas): remote uninhabited Chilean archipelago of San Ambrosio and San Félix, about 840 km off Antofagasta, with extreme marine endemism and the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park.

Detroit Plateau

Detroit Plateau: major ice-covered interior plateau of Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula, 1,500-1,800 m high, seen from the air by Hubert Wilkins in 1928 and named for the Detroit Aviation Society.

Devils Garden

Devils Garden, Oregon volcanic field (also Devils Garden Lava Field); 117 km2 monogenetic basaltic pahoehoe field in the High Lava Plains SE of Newberry volcano, with the Blowouts spatter cones and Derrick Cave; distinct from Devils Garden at Arches NP and Amazonian ant devil's gardens.

Devon Ice Cap

Devon Ice Cap, a roughly 14,000 km² ice cap on Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada, one of the largest Canadian Arctic ice caps, monitored for mass balance since 1961 and losing mass at about −1.08 Gt per year.

Devon Island

Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada: the world's largest uninhabited island (55,247 km2), a High Arctic polar desert with the Haughton impact crater, Franklin expedition sites, and NASA Mars analog stations.

Dhaulagiri

Dhaulagiri (धौलागिरी, White Mountain) is Nepal's 8,167 m peak, the world's seventh highest, northwest of Pokhara. First climbed 13 May 1960 by Max Eiselin's Swiss-led international expedition using the aircraft Yeti; standard route is the Northeast Ridge.

Dhaulagiri II

Dhaulagiri II (धौलागिरी) is the second-highest peak of the Dhaulagiri Himal in western Nepal at 7,751 meters, first climbed in 1971 by an Austrian-led expedition, lying northwest of Dhaulagiri I.

Diamond Head, Hawaii

Diamond Head (Lēʻahi) is a 760-foot volcanic tuff cone near Waikīkī on Oʻahu, Hawaii, home to Diamond Head State Monument, a 1908 military summit trail, and a reservation-required state park.

Diamond Peak

Diamond Peak names several US mountains: a 10,619-ft Eureka County, Nevada high point in the Diamond Mountains, the Diamond Peak ski resort at Incline Village, Lake Tahoe, and peaks in Lassen park, Oregon, and Idaho.

Die Berg

Die Berg (De Berg), peak in Thaba Chweu, Mpumalanga, South Africa; highest point of Steenkampsberg and of Mpumalanga at about 2,331 m, prominence 676 m, isolation 292.59 km.

Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia is a coral atoll in the Chagos Archipelago in the central Indian Ocean, the largest island of the group and home to a joint UK-US military base.

Dinara

Dinara is a karst mountain massif on the Croatia–Bosnia and Herzegovina border; Sinjal (1,831 m) is Croatia's highest peak, Troglav (1,913 m) the massif's highest, and the mountain gave its name to the Dinaric Alps and Dinarides.

Dinaric Alps

Dinaric Alps (Dinarides): ~650 km mountain chain along the eastern Adriatic coast from Slovenia to Albania, highest peak Prokletije 2,694 m; home of classical karst (~60,000 km²) and the Adria plate boundary.

Dinaric doline landscapes

Dinaric doline landscapes are karst terrains of the Dinaric Alps, between the Adriatic Sea and the Pannonian Basin, densely covered in sinkholes, the type area of karst geomorphology.

Dinosaur Park Formation

Dinosaur Park Formation: Late Campanian (Campanian) rock unit of the Belly River Group in southern Alberta, Canada, exposed at Dinosaur Provincial Park; ~80 m thick, dated 76.7-74.3 Ma, famed for hadrosaur, ceratopsian, and theropod fossils.

Diomede Islands (острова Диомида)

Diomede Islands (острова Диомида): two Bering Strait islands, Big Diomede (Russia, Ratmanova/Imaqłiq) and Little Diomede (US, Krusenstern/Iŋaliq), 3.8 km apart, split by the International Date Line and US–Russia border, 21 hours apart.

Dirk Hartog Island

Dirk Hartog Island (Wirruwana), Western Australia's largest island at Shark Bay, site of the first European landing on WA's coast by Dirk Hartog in the Eendracht on 25 October 1616, marked by a pewter plate at Cape Inscription.

Disappearance of Ben McDaniel

The disappearance of Ben McDaniel, also known as Benjamin McDaniel, is the unsolved case of a 30-year-old Memphis diver last seen entering the underwater cave at Vortex Spring, Florida, in 2010.

Oct 15, 2026

DISC Drill (ice drilling system)

The DISC (Deep Ice Sheet Coring) Drill is an electromechanical drill built for the NSF that drilled the deepest U.S. ice core, 3,405 m, at WAIS Divide.

Disteghil Sar

Disteghil Sar (Distaghil Sar, دستاغل سر), 7,885 m, is the highest peak of the Hispar Muztagh in Pakistan's Karakoram, first climbed June 9, 1960 by Austrians Stärker and Marchart via the south face; second ascent 1982.

Djerba (جربة)

Djerba (جربة) is a 514 km² Tunisian Mediterranean island, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023 for its dispersed menzel-houma settlement pattern, defensive mosques, and Ibadi and Jewish communities.

Dnieper Upland

Dnieper Upland (Придніпровська височина, Dnipro Upland), an 80,000 sq km upland in central Ukraine between the Boh and Dnipro rivers on the Ukrainian Crystalline Shield, 180–322 m high, chernozem grain belt.

Doab

Doab (Persian do-ab, "two waters"; Hindi दोआब) is the South Asian term for land between two confluent rivers, an interfluve. Named examples include Punjab's Sindh Sagar, Chaj, Rechna, Bari and Bist doabs and the Ganga-Yamuna Doab.

Dobšiná Ice Cave

Dobšiná Ice Cave (Dobšinská ľadová jaskyňa) is a Slovak Paradise limestone ice cave with 110,100 m³ of perennial ice, discovered 1870 by Eugen Ruffinyi, electrically lit 1887, UNESCO-listed since 2000.

Doda Betta

Doda Betta (Doddabetta), 'big mountain' in Badaga, is the highest peak of the Nilgiris and Tamil Nadu at about 2,623-2,637 m, 10 km from Ooty, with a TTDC Telescope House opened in 1983.

Dodecanese (Δωδεκάνησα)

The Dodecanese (Δωδεκάνησα), meaning "twelve islands", are a Greek island group in the southeastern Aegean Sea near Turkey, with 18 large islands and Rhodes as capital and largest island.