Major Deserts of Africa

Africa is home to some of the largest and most diverse deserts in the world. These deserts are not just sandy wastelands, as often imagined; they are rich in geological diversity, ecological uniqueness, and even human adaptations.

Guys note that a phrase has been provided with each of the deserts just for you to remember the importance of them or quicky you can recall in the exam:

Let’s explore the major African deserts, beginning with the mightiest of them all — the Sahara.

🏜️ Sahara Desert – The Great Sand Sea

📍 Location: North Africa
🌐 Area: ~9.2 million sq. km – World’s largest hot desert, 3rd largest overall (after Antarctica and Arctic)

🔹 Geographical Extent:

• North → Atlas Mountains, Mediterranean Sea
• East → Red Sea
• West → Atlantic Ocean
• South → Sahel region (semi-arid transition zone)

🗺️ Covers parts of 11 countries:

🇩🇿 Algeria 🇱🇾 Libya 🇪🇬 Egypt 🇲🇷 Mauritania 🇲🇱 Mali 🇳🇪 Niger 🇹🇩 Chad 🇸🇩 Sudan 🇲🇦 Morocco 🇹🇳 Tunisia 🇪🇭 Western Sahara

🧭 Key Physical Features:

• Contains rugged mountain ranges:
  • Ahaggar Mountains (Algeria)
  • Tibesti Mountains (Chad – home to volcanic peaks like Emi Koussi)
• Hosts rocky plateaus, gravel plains, ergs (sand seas), and hamadas (barren rocky areas).

🌡️ Climate Extremes:

• Holds the record for one of the highest temperatures:
  Al Azizia (Libya) – 57.7°C in 1922.

💧 Drainage & Rivers:

• Sparse but important:
  • Nile River flows through the eastern Sahara.
  • Niger River originates in Fouta Djallon (Guinea) and briefly enters southwestern Sahara.
  • Ephemeral rivers and wadis (seasonal streams) feed Lake Chad.

🏕️ Human Geography:

• Inhabited by nomadic tribes:
  • Bedouins (Arabic-speaking)
  • Tuaregs (Berber-speaking, “Blue People” of the desert)
• Presence of oases: self-contained water systems supporting agriculture.

🏞️ Tafilalt Oasis (Morocco) – among the largest self-contained oases in the Sahara.

• (Compare: Al-Ahsa in Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest).

🏜️ Kalahari Desert – The Red Sands of the South

📍 Location: Covers much of Botswana, parts of Namibia and South Africa

🔹 Nature:

• Technically a semi-arid sandy savanna, not a true desert due to more rainfall.

💧 Unique Water Features:

• Only permanent river: Okavango River — forms the Okavango Delta, a unique inland delta teeming with wildlife.
• Salt Pans:
  • Makgadikgadi Pan (Botswana)
  • Etosha Pan (Namibia)

🌾 Home to the San people (Bushmen) — traditional hunter-gatherers of Southern Africa.

🏜️ Namib Desert – The Living Fossil Desert

📍 Location: Runs along the Atlantic coast of Namibia, Angola, and South Africa
🌐 Length: Over 2,000 km

🔹 Type:

• Cold coastal desert – influenced by the Benguela Current, which causes fog and limits rainfall.

🏞️ Landscape:

• Inland: Gravel plains, rock outcrops
• Coastal: Tall sand dunes — among the highest in the world (e.g., Dune 7, Big Daddy)

🐞 Famous for fog-basking beetles, Welwitschia plant, and desert-adapted elephants.

🏜️ Karoo Desert – A Fossil Time Machine

📍 Location: South Africa
📌 Type: Semi-desert – divided into Great Karoo and Little Karoo

🔹 Key Features:

• Barren terrain with scrub vegetation.
• Renowned for fossil deposits, especially of prehistoric reptiles and therapsids (ancestors of mammals).

🔬 Karoo rocks are critical in understanding the Permian-Triassic extinction.

🏜️ Nubian Desert – Desert of Sand and Stone

📍 Location: Northeastern Sudan and southeastern Egypt

🔹 Boundaries:

• North → Egypt
• East → Red Sea
• South → Nile River
• West → Libyan Desert

🏞️ Landscape:

• Dominated by rocky terrain and sandstone plateaus, unlike the typical sandy Sahara.
• Some dunes are present but less extensive.

👥 Inhabitants:

• Home to Nubian nomads, who have adapted to its harsh environment for centuries.

🏜️ Libyan Desert – Sahara’s Most Inhospitable Part

📍 Location: Northeastern Sahara

• Covers parts of eastern Libya, southwestern Egypt, and northwestern Sudan

🔹 Topography:

• Barren, dry, and rugged.
• Features bare rocky plateaus, stone plains, and sand sheets.

🗻 Notable Peak:

• Mount Al-ʿUwaynat (1,934 m) — located at the tri-junction of Libya, Egypt, and Sudan.

🌬️ One of the driest regions on Earth — practically rainless for years.