About one quarter of the earth's land is in the grasslands. This biome can be found on every continent except Antarctica.
Grasslands exist on either side of two desert belts that circle the earth.
Temperate grasslands once covered much of the interior of North America, and they were common in Eurasia and South America as well. Such grasslands are often highly productive when they are converted to agricultural uses. Many of the rich agricultural lands in the United States and southern Canada were originally occupied by prairies , another name for grasslands. In eastern Europe and central Asia, they are called steppes . Whatever name they go by, all grasslands are similar.