Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert is the world’s largest desert area. It extends from the Africa’s Atlantic Ocean side to the Red Sea and consists of the countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan. It is about 5,200 miles long. Overall, the Sahara Desert covers 3,500,000 square miles.

The geography of the desert is varied. In the west, the Sahara is rocky with varied elevation. It does contain underground rivers, which sometime penetrate the surface, resulting in oases. The central region of the Sahara has more elevation than the other areas, with peaks such as Emi Koussi and Tahat. Even though the area lacks rainfall, these peaks are snowcapped during the winter. The Eastern part of the Sahara, the Libyan Desert, is dry with very few oases.

The Sahara’s climate is very hot and dry. Although it is very hot during the day, it does become cold at night. On average, it only has 8 inches of rainfall per year. Because of this, the Sahara has a poulation of only 2 million people.

The Sahara used to be a fertile area in which elephants, giraffes and other animals grazed. This was about 10,000 years ago. It is estimated that in 4,000bc, the climate began to get drier. The fertile landscape dried up and the desert widened, creating the form that appears today.

Andrew