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A salt pan is a place where water pools when it rains. A salt pan would be a lake or a pond if it was in a location in a climate where the rate of water evaporation wasn't faster than the rate of water precipitation, i.e., if it wasn't in a desert. If the water is unable to drain into the ground, it sits on the surface until it evaporates. When the water evaporates it leaves behind whatever minerals were dissolved in it. Over thousands of years, the minerals (usually salts) accumulate until the surface is white with it. There are many salt pans in the south-western United States. You can see them from an airliner; from that height a salt pan can look like a frozen lake or a snowfield.

Salt pans can be dangerous. You should never attempt to cross a salt pan on foot or in a vehicle unless you know exactly what you are doing. The crust of salt can conceal a quagmireA quagmire (from "quake" + "mire") is, literally, shaky, miry ground; as a political term used to describe a foreign military campaign in which there is either no foreseeable possibility of victory or the objectives are unclearly defined, and at the same of mudSee also MUD (Multi-User Dungeon). A liquid or semi-liquid mixture of water and soil, or sediment, is commonly referred to as mud . Geologically speaking, mud is a mixture of water and particles of silt and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geologica that can engulf a truck. The Qattara DepressionThe Qattara Depression (local: Munkhafad al-Qattarah is a desert basin within the Libyan Desert of north-western Egypt. The Depression, at 133m below sea level, contains the second lowest point in Africa (See also: Lase Assal). The Depression covers about in the eastern Sahara desert contains many such traps; it was a strategic barrier during World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough.

The two best-known salt pans in the USA are probably the one where Burning Man Festival is held, and the Salt Lake Desert , a vast flat plain where many land speedFor alternate uses, see Speed (disambiguation). Speed (symbol: v is the rate of motion, or equivalently the rate of change of position, expressed as distance d moved per unit of time t''. Speed is a scalar quantity with dimensions Length/ Time; the equiva records have been set.

The Etosha Pan in the Etosha National ParkSatellite picture of the Etosha Pan Etosha National Park in Namibia was first established in 1907, when Namibia was a German colony known as South West Africa''. At the time, the park’s original 100,000 km² (38,500 mile²) made it the largest game reserve in Namibia is another prominent example of a salt pan.