Playa

Playa is a word with more than one meaning. In Spanish, playa means beach or shore and is used to describe coastal features as well as in place names across the Spanish-speaking world. In English-language contexts, the term appears in proper names such as Playa del Carmen or Playa Vista and is sometimes used to refer to a beach in areas associated with Spanish-speaking communities.

In geology, a playa (plural playas) is a dry lake bed or flat area at the bottom of an arid or semiarid basin. It forms when rainfall collects in a closed drainage basin with no outlet, creating a temporary lake that eventually evaporates. As water leaves, dissolved minerals—salts, carbonates, and clays—are left behind, often producing a hard crust or a salt-rich surface. Playas are common in deserts around the world, including parts of the southwestern United States, North Africa, and South America. They can remain dry for long periods but may fill briefly during unusually wet years.

A playa differs from a permanently saline salt flat or pan in that it is the product of episodic evaporation within a closed basin; its wetness is typically temporary. Playas are of interest in geology and paleoclimatology as records of past hydrology in desert environments and as analogs for similar features on other planetary bodies.