Are there deserts in the tropics?

This depends on what you mean by 'tropics'. There are no deserts in the wet tropics near the equator. read more

There are no deserts in the wet tropics near the equator. But, some people use the phrase 'dry tropics' to describe places a bit further from the equator which can still have stinking hot days and occasional cyclones, but are not as wet. read more

There are no deserts in the wet tropics near the equator. But, some people use the phrase 'dry tropics' to describe places a bit further from the equator which can still have stinking hot days and occasional cyclones, but are not as wet. Some of these places are also desert, averaging less than 250mm of rain per year. read more

An interesting variant of tropical and subtropical deserts are the so-called West Coast Desert areas found on the western coastal margins of the regions discussed above (such as in the Sonoran Desert of North America, the Peru and Atacama deserts of South America, and the Sahara [Moroccan part] and Namib deserts of Africa). read more

None of these reasons are present in or around the equator, but closer to the tropics and therefore you have these deserts away from the equator but closer to the tropics. Cold deserts other than the ones at the poles (Gobi, Ladakh) are formed at hard-rock plateaus shielded by mountains thereby creating a high pressure combined with a rain shadow effect. read more