What continent is the Sahara Desert located on? Hot Sahara Desert on the map

The largest and most famous desert is the Sahara. Its name translates as “sand”. The Sahara Desert is the hottest. It is believed that there is no water, vegetation, or living creatures here, but in fact this is not such an empty zone as it seems at first glance. This unique place once looked like a huge garden with flowers, lakes, and trees. But as a result of evolution most beautiful place turned into a huge desert. This happened about three thousand years ago, and yet five thousand years ago the Sahara was a garden.

Geographical features

The Sahara Desert is located in Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad, Libya, Morocco, Mali, Niger, Western Sahara and Mauritania. IN summer time the sand warms up to a temperature of 80 degrees. This is one of the few places where evaporation exceeds precipitation several times. On average, the Sahara Desert receives about 100 mm of precipitation per year, and evaporation is up to 5500 mm. On hot, rainy days, the raindrops disappear, evaporating before they hit the ground.

Under the Sahara there is fresh water. There are huge reserves of it here: near Egypt, Chad, Sudan and Libya there is a huge lake containing 370 thousand cubic meters of water.

The desertion of the Sahara Desert began approximately five thousand years ago. Found rock paintings from those times prove that several thousand years ago, in place of the sands there was a savannah with a large number lakes, rivers Now in these areas you can see huge riverbeds in the sand. During the rains, they are filled with water, turning into full-fledged rivers.

The photo of the Sahara Desert shows solid sand. They occupy large area. In addition to them, the desert has sandy-pebble, pebble, rocky, and saline soil types. The average thickness of the sands is about 150 m, and the largest hills can reach a height of 300 m.

According to scientists, in order to scoop up all the sand from the desert, every person on Earth would have to carry three million buckets.

Climate

Here is a real kingdom of wind and sand. In the summer, the temperature in the Sahara Desert rises to fifty degrees and above, and in winter - up to thirty. In the southern part of the Sahara the climate is tropical, dry, and in the north it is subtropical.

Rivers

Despite the drought and heat, there is life in the desert, but only near bodies of water. The largest and great river is Neil. It flows through desert lands. In the last century, a reservoir was built on the banks of the Nile. Because of this, it was formed big lake Toshka. The Niger flows to the southwest, and within this river there are several lakes.

Mirages

The air temperature in the Sahara Desert is so high that at certain moments mirages are created. Exhausted by the heat, travelers begin to see oases with green palm trees and water. It seems to them that these objects are two kilometers away from them, but in fact the distance is measured at five hundred kilometers or more. This is an optical illusion that occurs due to the refraction of light at the boundary different temperatures. Several hundred thousand such mirages appear in the desert every day. There's even special cards, intended for travelers, where it is said in what place, when and what can be seen.

Animal and plant life

The amazing thing is that the desert is filled with a variety of animals. Over thousands of years of evolution, they have adapted to survive in such conditions.

Animals of the Sahara Desert are found everywhere, but most often not far from rivers and lakes, oases. There are about four thousand species in total. Even in an area as dry as Death Valley, where there is no rain for several years, the most different representatives fauna. You can even find thirteen species of fish here.

Lizards living in the desert are able to collect moisture from environment. The Sahara is the habitat of camels, monitor lizards, scorpions, snakes, and sand cats.

All plants that grow in the desert have roots deep underground. They are able to reach water at a depth of over twenty meters. Mostly thorns and cacti grow in the Sahara.

Amazing Weather Facts

Where the Sahara Desert is located, real miracles happen with the weather. As mentioned above, during the day the air warms up to fifty degrees and above, and at night the temperature drops sharply - to zero and below. Snowfalls have even been recorded here. Photos of the Sahara Desert in the snow can be seen in our article - this amazing phenomenon happens about once every hundred years.

Once every few years, in certain parts of the desert there is such an amount of precipitation that there is enough moisture to transform the area. It is rapidly turning into a blooming steppe. Plant seeds for a long time may be in the sand, waiting for moisture.

There are oases in the desert. There is always a small pond in the center, and vegetation around it. Under such oases there are huge lakes with an area larger than our Baikal. Groundwater feed surface lakes.

Desert Features

Desert - unique natural phenomenon. Travelers can watch the huge dunes move. Due to the winds, the sands shift right before our eyes. And in the Sahara the wind blows every day. This is due to the relatively flat surface of the territory. And if there is no wind for at least twenty days a year, then this is real luck.

The dimensions of the desert are constantly changing. If you look at satellite images, you can see how the Sahara is expanding and decreasing in size. This is due to the rainy seasons: where they have occurred in large quantities, everything is quickly covered with vegetation.

Sahara is largest deposit oil and gas. There are deposits of iron, gold, uranium, copper, tungsten and other rare metals.

In the center of the desert is the Tibesti plateau, covering southern Libya and part of Chad. Above this territory rises the Emmi-Kusi volcano, about three and a half kilometers high. In this place you can see snowfalls almost every year.

The northern part of the desert is occupied by Tenere - a sand sea with an area of approximately 400 kilometers. This natural creation is located in northern Niger and western Chad.

How people live

In those places where the Sahara Desert is located, people once lived, trees grew, there were many lakes and rivers. After the area became deserted, people went to the banks of the Nile, forming the ancient Egyptian civilization.

In some areas of the Sahara, people build houses out of salt. They are not worried that their homes will melt from the water, because rains here are rare and in small quantities. The bulk of them do not have time to reach the ground, evaporating in the clouds.

Population

The Sahara is a sparsely populated area. About two million people live here, and most of the people live near bodies of water, on islands with vegetation that allow them to feed livestock.

There were times when the area was densely populated. In the desert, people are engaged in cattle breeding, and along the banks of rivers - in agriculture. There are people involved in other crafts such as fishing.

Once upon a time, a trade route connecting the Atlantic Ocean with northern Africa passed through the desert. Previously, camels were used to transport goods, but now there are two highways across the Sahara, connecting several major cities. One of them passes through the largest oasis.

Desert location

Where is the Sahara Desert located and how big is it? This miracle of nature is located in Africa, in the northern part of the continent. It stretches from west to east for about five thousand kilometers, and from north to south - for a thousand kilometers. The area of the Sahara is about nine million square kilometers. This is an area comparable to Brazil.

On the western side, the Sahara is washed by the Atlantic Ocean. In the north the desert borders Mediterranean Sea, Atlas Mountains.

The Sahara covers more than ten states. Most of its territory is uninhabited, since these lands are not suitable for human life. There are no oases, rivers or lakes here. All settlements are located precisely along the banks of reservoirs, and most of the continent’s population lives on the banks of the Nile.

Scientists about the Sugar

The Sahara continues to evolve. Gradually it captures more and more new territories. According to scientists, every year it conquers lands from people, turning them into sand. Scientists' forecasts are disappointing. If the processes of depopulation continue, then in two hundred years all of Africa will become one huge Sahara.

The results of observations showed that every year the Sahara increases in size by ten kilometers. And every year the captured area increases. If the desert continues to grow, all the rivers and lakes of the continent will dry up forever, forcing people to leave Africa and move to other countries of the world.

The Great Sahara Desert is located in Northern Africa and partially or completely covers the territory of almost eleven countries. This is the largest desert in the world, covering an area of more than 9,000,000 square meters. km, quite comparable to the area of the United States. It extends 1600 km wide and about 5000 km long from east to west. They say that a thousand years ago the climate in the desert was more humid. The fact is that in the distant past, the territory of the Sahara underwent various atmospheric changes, which led to a change in climatic conditions. The desert divides the African continent into two parts - North and Sub-Saharan Africa. After reviewing the following interesting facts, you will learn more about this desert.

The Sahara Desert is the second largest desert in the world (after Antactis) and the largest hot desert on the planet.

It covers almost all parts of North Africa. Stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coast, to the outskirts Atlantic Ocean. In the southern region, its border is the semi-arid savannah region of the Sahel, separating the desert from Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the boundaries of the desert are not clearly defined; moreover, over the past thousand years they have undergone significant changes.

The Sahara passes through the territory of the following countries: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara.

The history of the desert goes back at least 3 million years.

The climate of the Sahara is combined: in the north it is subtropical, and in the south it is tropical.

The relief is quite varied, but in general it is a plateau lying at an altitude of 400-500 m above sea level. There is underground rivers, which sometimes flow to the surface, forming oases. Vegetation develops well in such natural oases. The soil in these regions of the Sahara is very fertile, so where irrigation is possible, excellent crops grow.

Part of the desert territory is occupied by sand dunes that reach a height of 180 meters.

The central region is more elevated above sea level compared to the rest of its regions. The central plateau stretches for 1600 km from northwest to southeast. Its height ranges from 600 to 750 m, some peaks reach a level of 1800 m and even 3400 m. The highest points are the peaks of Emi Koussi with a height of 3415 m, Tahat - 3003 m, the Tibetsi massif and Ahaggar Highlands.

This may seem strange, but winter time There are snow caps on the mountain peaks. In the eastern part of the Sahara - the Libyan Desert - the climate is the driest, so there are very few oases here. This part contains sandy areas with large dunes, the height of which reaches 122 meters or more.

The climate of the Sahara Desert is very hot and dry. It gets very hot here during the day and cool at night.

The Sahara region receives only 20 cm of precipitation per year. It is for this reason that very few people live here. large number population, only 2 million people.

The desert used to be fertile land where elephants, giraffes and other animals grazed. Gradually it became increasingly arid, and the fertile landscape turned into the barren region we know it today.

The central part of the Sahara is extremely dry, with sparse or no vegetation. In areas where moisture accumulates, grasslands, desert shrubs, trees and tall shrubs are sometimes found here.

During the last Ice Age, the desert was larger than it is now, extending south beyond its present boundaries.

Climatic conditions here are considered the toughest in the world. Prevailing northeasterly winds often cause sandstorms and micro-tornadoes called “dust devils.”

Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the Sahara, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

The Sahara is divided into several regions: Western Sahara, Central Highlands of Ahaggar, Tibesti Mountains, Aïr Mountains (a region of desert mountains and high plateaus), the Tenere Desert and the Libyan Desert (the driest region).

The Nile River Valley and the mountainous regions of the Nubian Desert east of the Nile are geographically part of the Sahara Desert. However, the waters of the Nile turned this territory of Egypt from barren desert into fertile agricultural area.

A truly endless sea of sun-scorched sand, stone and clay, enlivened only by rare green spots of oases and one the only river- that's what the Sahara is.

The gigantic scale of this largest desert in the world is simply amazing.

Its territory occupies almost eight million square kilometers - it is larger than Australia and only slightly smaller than Brazil. Its hot expanses stretch for five thousand kilometers from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

Nowhere else on Earth is there such a vast waterless space. There are places in the interior of the Sahara where there is no rain for years.

Thus, in the In-Salah oasis, in the heart of the desert, in eleven years, from 1903 to 1913, it rained only once - in 1910, and only eight millimeters of precipitation fell.

These days the Sahara is not so difficult to reach. From the city of Algiers, along a good highway, you can reach the desert in one day.

Through the picturesque El Kantara gorge - the "Gateway to the Sahara" - the traveler finds himself in places that, with their landscape, do not at all resemble what he expected " sandy sea"with golden waves of dunes.

To the left and right of the road, which runs along a rocky and clayey plain, rise small rocks, to which the wind and sand have given the intricate outlines of fairy-tale castles and towers.

Sandy deserts - ergs - occupy less than a quarter of the entire territory of the Sahara, the rest is made up of rocky plains, as well as clayey areas cracked by the scorching heat and salt-white depressions, salt marshes, giving rise to deceptive mirages in the unsteady haze of heated air.

In general, the Sahara is a vast tableau, the flat character of which is broken only by the depressions of the Nile and Niger valleys and Lake Chad.

On this plain, only in three places do truly high, albeit small in area, mountain ranges rise. These are the Ahaggar and Tibesti highlands and the Darfur plateau, rising more than three kilometers above sea level.

The mountainous, completely dry landscapes of Ahaggar are often compared to lunar landscapes. But under natural rock overhangs, archaeologists discovered an entire Stone Age art gallery here.

Cave paintings of ancient people depicted elephants and hippopotamuses, crocodiles and giraffes, rivers with floating boats and people harvesting...

All this suggests that the Sahara's climate was previously wetter, and most of the current desert was once savannah.

Now they are found only on the slopes of the Tibesti highlands and the flat, elevated plains of Darfur, where for a month or two a year, while rains occur, real rivers even flow through the gorges, and abundant springs all year round nourish oases with water.

In the rest of the Sahara, precipitation falls less than two hundred and fifty millimeters per year. Geographers call such areas arid.

They are unsuitable for agriculture, and they can only be used to drive herds of sheep and camels in search of meager food.

Here are the hottest places on our planet. For example, in Libya there are areas where the heat reaches fifty-eight degrees! And in some areas of Ethiopia even average annual temperature does not fall below plus thirty-five.

The sun regulates the entire life of the Sahara. Its radiation, given the sparse cloudiness, low air humidity and lack of vegetation, reaches very high values.

Daily temperatures here are characterized by large jumps. The difference between day and night temperatures reaches thirty degrees! Sometimes frosts occur at night in February, and on Ahaggar or Tibesti the temperature can drop to minus eighteen degrees.

Of all atmospheric phenomena The hardest thing for a traveler to endure in the Sahara is prolonged storms. The desert wind, hot and dry, causes hardship even when it is transparent, but it is even more difficult for travelers when it carries dust or small grains of sand.

Dust storms occur more often than sand storms. The Sahara is perhaps the dustiest place on Earth. From a distance, these storms look like fires that quickly engulf everything around, clouds of smoke from which rise high into the sky.

With furious force they rush across the plains and mountains, blowing dust from the destroyed rocks on their way.

Storms in the Sahara are extremely powerful. The wind speed sometimes reaches fifty meters per second (remember that thirty meters per second is already a hurricane!).

Caravan workers say that sometimes heavy camel saddles are carried away by the wind two hundred meters away, and stones the size of chicken eggs roll on the ground like peas.

A gray pillar rises into the air all the way to the clouds. The pilots met dust devils sometimes at an altitude of one and a half kilometers. It happens that the wind carries Saharan dust across the Mediterranean Sea to Southern Europe.

In Egypt, such a wind is called khamsin (literally “fifty”), since it usually blows for fifty days after spring equinox.

During its almost two-month rampage, window glass that is not covered with shutters becomes frosted - this is how grains of sand carried by the wind scratch it.

They say that there was a case when gazelles, usually very shy, calmly walked in a caravan during a “dry fog”, walking between people and camels.

It is somewhere far away that the wind has picked up and is driving the red sands of the desert towards the caravan. Soon the dim sun barely breaks through the quickly rushing sand clouds. It becomes difficult to breathe, it seems that the sand has replaced the air and filled everything around.

Hurricane wind rushes at speeds of up to hundreds of kilometers per hour. The sand burns, suffocates, knocks you down. Such a storm sometimes lasts a week, and woe to those whom it finds on the way.

Each time the sky in the rays of the setting sun amazes with a new combination of shades - blood red and pink-pearl, imperceptibly merging with soft blue. All this is piled on the horizon in several floors, burns and sparkles, growing into some bizarre, fabulous forms, and then gradually fades away.

Then almost instantly an absolutely black night sets in, the darkness of which even the bright southern stars are unable to dispel.

Of course, the most desirable and most picturesque places in the Sahara are oases.

Telegraph poles are buried in a good two-thirds of it, and teams of workers with shovels and brooms are constantly clearing out drifts in one area or another.

After all, the wind blows here all year round. And even a weak breeze, tearing off the tops of sandy dune hills, steadily moves sand waves from place to place. When the wind is strong, traffic on desert roads sometimes stops completely, and not for just one day.

In the dry bed of the river flowing through the oasis, deep funnel holes are dug and palm trees are planted in them. Water always flows under the rus house at a depth of five to six meters, so the roots of palm trees planted in this way easily reach the level of the underground stream and do not require irrigation.

Each crater contains between fifty and one hundred palm trees. The sinkholes are located in rows along the riverbed, and all of them are threatened common enemy- sand. To prevent the slopes from sliding, the edges of the craters are reinforced with fences made of palm branches, but sand still seeps down. You have to take it out on donkeys or carry it in baskets all year round.

In the summer, in the heat, this hard work can only be done at night, by torchlight or in the glow full moon. Water wells are also dug in these same craters. It is enough for drinking and for watering gardens. Camel droppings serve as fertilizer.

Dates and camel milk are the main food of fellah farmers. And the valuable muscat variety of dates is sold and even exported to Europe.

The capital of the Algerian Sahara - the oasis of Ouargla - differs from other oases in that it has... a real lake. This tiny town in the center of the desert has a huge reservoir, by local standards, with an area of four hundred hectares.

It was formed from water released from palm plantations after irrigation. Water is always supplied to fields and date groves in excess, otherwise evaporation will lead to the accumulation of salts in the soil.

Excess water along with salts is dumped into a depression next to the oasis. This is how artificial lakes arise in the Sahara.

True, most of them are not as large as in Ouargla, and do not withstand the mortal struggle with sand and sun. Most often, these are simply swampy depressions, the surface of which is covered with a dense, transparent, glass-like layer of salt.

Such a temptation often arises among travelers both on ancient caravan trails and on modern asphalt highways in these inhospitable lands.

When the desired outlines of an oasis appear on the horizon before the traveler, exhausted by a long journey, the Arab guide only shakes his head negatively.

He knows that there are still tens of kilometers to the oasis under the scorching sun, and what the traveler sees “with his own eyes” is just a mirage.

This optical illusion sometimes misleads even experienced people. Experienced travelers, who walked along the sands on more than one expedition route and studied the desert for more than one year, also happened to become victims of mirages.

When you see palm groves and a lake, white clay houses and a mosque with a high minaret at a short distance, it is difficult to bring yourself to believe that in reality they are several hundred kilometers away. Experienced caravan guides sometimes fell under the power of the mirage.

One day, sixty people and ninety camels died in the desert, following a mirage that carried them sixty kilometers away from the well.

For many caravan routes, maps have been drawn up, which indicate places where mirages are often found. These maps even mark what exactly is seen in a particular place: wells, oases, palm groves, mountain ranges, and so on.

The Sahara is gradually becoming that disastrous place that European travelers feared more than the Arctic snows and Amazonian jungles.

And next to their caravan, running along the side of the road with a quiet rustle are the mysterious guardians of the peace of this hot but beautiful region - dusty-gray, wind-swept “genies of the desert.”

Deserts have always attracted the attention of researchers and travelers. These are unique natural areas excite the imagination and frighten us with their mystery. The most famous desert in the world is the Sahara. In this article we will tell you how the Sahara Desert differs from other arid places on our planet and why it is interesting to modern science.

Geography of the Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert is located in the northern part of the African continent and occupies almost 30% of the total area of Africa, which is comparable to the territory of Brazil. The area of the Sahara is about 8.5 million square kilometers, which is why this desert is called the “Great Sahara”. Sugar is second in size only to arctic desert, but is the largest hot desert in the world. In the depths of the desert there is a huge amount of oil and natural gas. Especially in the territory belonging to Algeria and Libya. In addition, Algeria and Mauritania have large reserves iron ore, and Morocco has a large amount of phosphates.

The exact age of the desert is unknown. There are different versions. Initially it was believed that it was about 6 thousand years old. Now scientists agree that the Sahara was formed approximately 3.5 thousand years ago.

The Sahara Desert is washed by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, the Mediterranean Sea in the north, and the Red Sea in the east. The Niger River flows in the south of the desert.

The Sahara is located on the territory of 11 countries: Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Chad, Morocco, Eritrea, Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Sudan. Sometimes the disputed territory of Western Sahara is added to this list.

Sahara desert map

Relief of the Sahara Desert

Most of the Sahara is sandy, poor in organic matter, open spaces - flat pebble, clay and rocky plains. But here you can also find mountain ranges, plateaus, shallow basins, large oasis depressions and grasslands, which makes the relief of the Sahara quite atypical and varied. The most hilly part of the desert is its central region. It is here that the highest point of the Sahara is located - the Emi-Kousi volcano, 3,500 m high, and Mount Takhat, 3,003 m.

25% of the desert surface (almost 2.5 million km2) is occupied by wadis - sun-dried river beds and sand dunes. Dunes are found mainly in the north central region, in Algeria and Libya, where they are moved by strong winds. The wind moves the sand up the back slope of the dunes until it reaches the crest, whereupon it falls under the influence of gravity, cascading down the sliding surface. The wind builds dunes in the form of waves along its path. The Sahara dunes come in different shapes: round, star-shaped, crescent-shaped, transverse and pyramidal (up to 300 m high).

Sand dunes of the Sahara.

Sahara desert climate

The climate of the Sahara is one of the harshest in the world. There is little precipitation, strong winds blow, and wide fluctuations in air temperature occur daily. The Sahara Desert is located in subtropical latitudes, with predominant zones of high atmospheric pressure that obstruct the flow humid air from the ocean side.

In the Sahara there are two main climatic zones: in the north there are subtropics, and in the south there are dry tropics. The northern part of the desert is the driest, and the western part is the wettest. During the rainy season, only 2 cm of precipitation falls in the north. The rest of the desert can receive up to 9.9 cm of precipitation in a whole year.

The prevailing wind blows from the northeast towards the equator, which explains the aridity of the desert. The Sahara experiences very strong winds, up to 100 km per hour. They are called Siroko. Such winds can cause sandstorms, which can be seen even from space.

In the summer in the Sahara you can safely record temperature records, since the air heats up to +60 degrees Celsius, and the sand up to +80 degrees Celsius. On September 13, 1922, in the Libyan city of Al-Azizia, it was recorded maximum temperature air in the Sahara - 57.7 degrees Celsius. The average annual temperature in the Sahara is 30 degrees Celsius. Since the air contains little moisture to retain heat, there are large differences between day and night temperatures - up to 40 degrees Celsius.

In winter, in the northern part of the desert there may be negative temperatures. V recent years ceased to be a rare occurrence.

Water in the Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert has only two permanent rivers and a few lakes, but it has significant underground reservoirs and aquifers.

The permanent rivers are the Nile and Niger. The Nile originates in central Africa, south of the Sahara, and flows north through Sudan and Egypt and into the Mediterranean Sea. Niger flows into West Africa, southwest of the Sahara, and continues its journey northeast to Mali, deep into the desert, through Nigeria, emptying into the Gulf of Guinea.

There are about 20 lakes in the Sahara and only one of them contains drinking water. This is a shallow Lake Chad, which constantly expands and contracts. Lake Chad is located on the territory of the state of the same name, on the southernmost edge of the Sahara. In other lakes the water is very salty and not suitable for human consumption.

An oasis in the middle of the Sahara Desert

Saharan reservoirs often lie just below dry river beds and river valleys, called "wadi". Aquifers sometimes they splash part of their reserves to the surface. This is how oases arise. They can usually be found in lowest points relief depressions. For many desert residents, oases are the only source of life in the middle of a hot sandy ocean.

Population of the Sahara

The Sahara is home to just over two million people. These are people who live in permanent communities near water sources, as well as nomadic tribes. Due to climate change, the number of people and many species of Saharan flora and fauna has declined sharply over the past decade.

Animals and plants of the Sahara Desert

Quite poor and monotonous. Due to the specific climate, only 500 plant species are counted in this vast region. In particular, these are trees, grasses, thorny bushes, and palm trees adapted to very hot conditions and salt water.

Plants often grow around oases, lakes and on hills. In oases, people practice growing fruits and some vegetables. Along Atlantic coast Enough moisture falls for the growth of lichens, succulents, and shrubs. Tibesti and Jebel Uweinat meet in the highlands. Because temperatures are cooler, plants such as tamarix, myrtle, oleander, acacia and palms can be found in this region.

The Sahara Desert is inhabited by about 4 thousand representatives of the animal world. These are mainly invertebrates, about 15% of them are endemic. Characteristic of Saharan animals night look life and near-aquatic habitats. The ponds are inhabited by crocodiles, frogs and crayfish. It is impossible not to mention lizards, scorpions, monitor lizards, chameleons and various reptiles that live on rocky slopes and sand dunes.

Almost 60 species of mammals are found in the Sahara. The most famous among them are the cheetah, the wild dog, some species of foxes (fennec fox, pale fox) and antelope, the spotted hyena and the Ethiopian hedgehog. Some animals are considered long extinct, such as the North African elephant and addax antelope, Saharan oryx, African wild dog and African lion. More than 300 bird species have been spotted in the desert. For example, silver-billed finch and masked amaranth.

The indigenous people of North Africa, the Berbers, raise camels, goats, sheep and donkeys.

The Sahara Desert is an attractive region for hunters. Due to intensive safaris, many animals are classified as vulnerable. For example, the Nubian ibex, which, like other representatives of the fauna, occupies an important place in the ecosystem.

Environmental problems of the Sahara Desert

Unfortunately, anthropogenic factors did not play a positive role here either. Due to the cutting down of trees, already scarce water bodies are catastrophically drying up. Animal grazing has led to the erosion of previously fertile soils. All this adds up to the fact that every year the desert becomes wider by 5-10 square kilometers. Due to the increase in desert area, the Earth's atmosphere is warming up faster, which negatively affects the inhabitants of the African continent and those who live beyond its borders.

Although very little research has been done in the desert region, it is clear that many animals and plants are dying out, although the reasons for this are not fully known.

Positive changes have been observed since 2014, as this year was officially dedicated to the problems of deserts and desertification. Thanks to this about serious environmental problems the whole world thought. Some states have taken over wide range commitments to preserve the Sahara. For example, a reserve was created in Niger, in which measures are being taken to protect and increase the populations of gazelles and antelopes living in the Sahara.

Interesting facts about the Sahara Desert

Sahrawis are primarily of Berber and/or Arab origin.
Due to its impressive size, the desert is also called the “Great Sahara”. The word “Sahara” itself means “greatest desert” in Arabic.
Goats and camels are the most common domestic animals in the Sahara.
In the desert, on natural rocks, archaeologists have found many rock paintings.
Modern methods of mapping and measurement show that the desert changes its size from year to year, depending on the amount of precipitation in the region.
Berbers, as well as Arab nomads, led their camel caravans across the Sahara, trading goods such as cloth, salt, gold and fish.
Scientists predict that the desert will turn green again in about 15,000 years.
The Sahara Desert is 70% gravel and 30% sand.
The Marathon des Sables is held in the Sahara. Daredevils from all over the world can take part in the six-day race. This pleasure is not cheap and requires good physical preparation.

Sahara Desert for tourists

Although the Sahara Desert is strongly associated with an environment unsuitable for life, it is still of considerable tourist interest. You can get there from Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. In other countries there are certain political problems that will make it difficult to stay there.

When going on an unconventional trip, it is extremely important to remember safety measures. Berber guides will play an invaluable role in exploring these vast expanses of sand. Without them, the Sahara Desert can be an extremely dangerous place to live.

Sahara Desert

(North Africa)

A truly endless sea of sun-scorched sand, stone and clay, enlivened only by rare green spots of oases and a single river - this is what the Sahara is. The gigantic scale of this largest desert in the world is simply amazing. Its territory occupies almost eight million square kilometers - it is larger than Australia and only slightly smaller than Brazil. Its hot expanses stretch for five thousand kilometers from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

Nowhere else on Earth is there such a vast waterless space. There are places in the interior of the Sahara where there is no rain for years. Thus, in the In-Salah oasis, in the heart of the desert, in eleven years, from 1903 to 1913, it rained only once - in 1910, and only eight millimeters of precipitation fell.

These days the Sahara is not so difficult to reach. From the city of Algiers, along a good highway, you can reach the desert in one day. Through the picturesque El Kantara gorge - the “Gateway to the Sahara” - the traveler finds himself in places whose landscape does not at all resemble the expected “sand sea” with golden waves of dunes. To the left and right of the road, which runs along a rocky and clayey plain, rise small rocks, to which the wind and sand have given the intricate outlines of fairy-tale castles and towers.

In general, the Sahara is a vast tableau, the flat character of which is broken only by the depressions of the Nile and Niger valleys and Lake Chad. On this plain, only in three places do truly high, albeit small in area, mountain ranges rise. These are the Ahaggar and Tibesti highlands and the Darfur plateau, rising more than three kilometers above sea level.

The mountainous, completely dry landscapes of Ahaggar are often compared to lunar landscapes. But under natural rock overhangs, archaeologists discovered an entire Stone Age art gallery here. Cave paintings of ancient people depicted elephants and hippopotamuses, crocodiles and giraffes, rivers with floating boats and people harvesting... All this suggests that the climate of the Sahara was previously more humid, and most of the current desert was once savannah.

Now they are found only on the slopes of the Tibesti highlands and the flat, elevated plains of Darfur, where for a month or two a year, while there is rain, real rivers even flow through the gorges, and abundant springs feed the oases with water all year round.

In the rest of the Sahara, precipitation falls less than two hundred and fifty millimeters per year. Geographers call such areas arid. They are unsuitable for agriculture, and they can only be used to drive herds of sheep and camels in search of meager food.

Here are the hottest places on our planet. For example, in Libya there are areas where the heat reaches fifty-eight degrees! And in some areas of Ethiopia, even the average annual temperature does not fall below plus thirty-five.

The sun regulates the entire life of the Sahara. Its radiation, taking into account rare cloudiness, low air humidity and lack of vegetation, reaches very high values. Daily temperatures here are characterized by large jumps. The difference between day and night temperatures reaches thirty degrees! Sometimes frosts occur at night in February, and on Ahaggar or Tibesti the temperature can drop to minus eighteen degrees.

Of all the atmospheric phenomena, the most difficult for a traveler to endure in the Sahara are prolonged storms. The desert wind, hot and dry, causes hardship even when it is transparent, but it is even more difficult for travelers when it carries dust or small grains of sand. Dust storms occur more often than sand storms. The Sahara is perhaps the dustiest place on Earth. From a distance, these storms look like fires that quickly engulf everything around, clouds of smoke from which rise high into the sky. With furious force they rush across the plains and mountains, blowing dust from the destroyed rocks on their way.

Storms in the Sahara are extremely powerful. The wind speed sometimes reaches fifty meters per second (remember that thirty meters per second is already a hurricane!). Caravan drivers say that sometimes heavy camel saddles are carried away by the wind two hundred meters away, and stones the size of chicken egg, roll on the ground like peas.

Quite often, tornadoes occur when highly heated air from the sun-hot earth rapidly rises, capturing fine dust and carrying it high into the sky. Therefore, such whirlwinds are visible from afar, which, as a rule, allows the rider to save his life by avoiding a meeting with the “genie of the desert” in time, as the Bedouins call a tornado. A gray pillar rises into the air all the way to the clouds. The pilots encountered dust devils sometimes at an altitude of one and a half kilometers. It happens that the wind carries Saharan dust across the Mediterranean Sea to Southern Europe.

On the endless Saharan plains the wind almost always blows. It is estimated that in the desert there are only six windless days per hundred days. The hot winds of the Northern Sahara are especially notorious, capable of destroying the entire harvest in the oasis in a few hours. These winds - sirocco - blow more often at the beginning of summer. In Egypt, this wind is called khamsin (literally "fifty"), since it usually blows for fifty days after the spring equinox. During its almost two-month rampage, window glass that is not covered with shutters becomes frosted - this is how grains of sand carried by the wind scratch it.

And when there is calm in the Sahara and the air is filled with dust, the “dry fog” known to all travelers occurs. In this case, visibility completely disappears, and the sun appears as a dim spot and does not provide a shadow. Even wild animals lose their orientation at such moments. They say that there was a case when gazelles, usually very shy, calmly walked in a caravan during a “dry fog”, walking between people and camels.

Sahara loves to remind herself unexpectedly. It happens that a caravan sets off when there is no sign of bad weather. The air is still clean and calm, but some strange heaviness is already spreading in it. Gradually, the sky on the horizon begins to turn pink, then takes on a purple hue. It is somewhere far away that the wind has picked up and is driving the red sands of the desert towards the caravan. Soon the dim sun barely breaks through the quickly rushing sand clouds. It becomes difficult to breathe, it seems that the sand has replaced the air and filled everything around. Hurricane winds rush at speeds of up to hundreds of kilometers per hour. The sand burns, suffocates, knocks you down. Such a storm sometimes lasts a week, and woe to those whom it finds on the way.

But if the weather in the Sahara is calm and the sky is not covered with dust raised by the wind, it is difficult to find a more beautiful sight than the sunset in the desert. Perhaps only the aurora makes a greater impression on the traveler. Each time the sky in the rays of the setting sun amazes with a new combination of shades - blood red and pink-pearl, imperceptibly merging with soft blue. All this is piled on the horizon in several floors, burns and sparkles, growing into some bizarre, fabulous forms, and then gradually fades away. Then almost instantly an absolutely black night sets in, the darkness of which even the bright southern stars are unable to dispel.

Of course, the most desirable and most picturesque places in the Sahara are oases.

The Algerian oasis of El Ouedde lies in the golden-yellow sands of the Grand Erg Orient. It is connected to the outside world by an asphalt highway, but this is how it appears only on the map. In many places the wide road surface is thoroughly covered with sand. Telegraph poles are buried in a good two-thirds of it, and teams of workers with shovels and brooms are constantly clearing out drifts in one area or another. After all, the wind blows here all year round. And even a weak breeze, tearing off the tops of sandy dune hills, steadily moves sand waves from place to place. When the wind is strong, traffic on desert roads sometimes stops completely, and not for just one day.

Like all oases of the Sahara, El Ouedde is surrounded by palm groves. Date palms are the basis of life for local residents. In other oases, irrigation systems are installed in order to provide them with water, but in El Ouedde the process is simpler. In the dry bed of the river flowing through the oasis, deep funnel holes are dug and palm trees are planted in them. Water always flows under the rus house at a depth of five to six meters, so the roots of palm trees planted in this way easily reach the level of the underground stream and do not require irrigation.

Each crater contains between fifty and one hundred palm trees. The sinkholes are located in rows along the riverbed, and they are all threatened by a common enemy - sand. To prevent the slopes from sliding, the edges of the craters are reinforced with fences made of palm branches, but sand still seeps down. You have to take it out on donkeys or carry it in baskets all year round. In the heat of summer, this hard work can only be done at night, by torchlight or in the glow of the full moon. Water wells are also dug in these same craters. It is enough for drinking and for watering gardens. Camel droppings serve as fertilizer.

Dates and camel milk are the main food of fellah farmers. And the valuable muscat variety of dates is sold and even exported to Europe.

The capital of the Algerian Sahara - the Ouargla oasis - differs from other oases in that it has... a real lake. This tiny town in the center of the desert has a huge reservoir, by local standards, with an area of four hundred hectares. It was formed from water released from palm plantations after irrigation. Water is always supplied to fields and date groves in excess, otherwise evaporation will lead to the accumulation of salts in the soil. Excess water along with salts is dumped into a depression next to the oasis. This is how artificial lakes arise in the Sahara.

But oases in the Sahara are rare, and from one “island of life” to another you have to travel along endless desert roads, overcoming the heat of the sun, hot wind, dust and... the temptation to turn off the road. Such a temptation often arises among travelers both on ancient caravan trails and on modern asphalt highways in these inhospitable lands.

When the desired outlines of an oasis appear on the horizon before the traveler, exhausted by a long journey, the Arab guide only shakes his head negatively. He knows that there are still tens of kilometers to the oasis under the scorching sun, and what the traveler sees “with his own eyes” is just a mirage.

This optical illusion sometimes misleads even experienced people. Experienced travelers who have walked the sands on more than one expedition route and studied the desert for more than one year have also happened to become victims of mirages. When you see palm groves and a lake, white clay houses and a mosque with a high minaret at a short distance, it is difficult to bring yourself to believe that in reality they are several hundred kilometers away. Experienced caravan guides sometimes fell under the power of the mirage. One day, sixty people and ninety camels died in the desert, following a mirage that carried them sixty kilometers away from the well.

In ancient times, travelers, to make sure whether it was a mirage or reality, lit a fire. If even a slight breeze blew in the desert, the smoke spreading along the ground quickly dispersed the mirage. For many caravan routes, maps have been drawn up, which indicate places where mirages are often found. These maps even mark what exactly is seen in a particular place: wells, oases, palm groves, mountain ranges, and so on.

And yet, in our time, when two modern highways run from north to south through the great desert, when multi-colored caravans of the Paris-Dakar rally rush along it every year, and artesian wells drilled along the roads make it possible, if necessary, to walk to the nearest source of water, the Sahara gradually turns out to be that disastrous place that European travelers feared more than the Arctic snows and Amazonian jungles.

Increasingly, inquisitive tourists, fed up with beach idleness and contemplation of the ruins of Carthage and other picturesque ruins, go by car or on a camel deep into this unique region of the planet to breathe a breath of the night wind on the slopes of Ahaggar, hear the rustle of palm crowns in the green coolness of the oasis, see the graceful running gazelles and admire the colors of Saharan sunsets. And next to their caravan, running along the side of the road with a quiet rustle are the mysterious guardians of the peace of this hot but beautiful region - dusty-gray, wind-swept “genies of the desert.”

From the book Encyclopedic Dictionary(WITH) author Brockhaus F.A.

From the book Records in the Natural World author Lyakhova Kristina Alexandrovna

Sahara The world's largest desert, the Sahara, covers 7,820,000 km2 of sandy and rocky expanses. It extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, from the Atlas Mountains and Mediterranean coast in the north up to 15° northern latitude in the south, where

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GI) by the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (LI) by the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (NU) by the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (PU) by the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (RE) by the author TSB

From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (SI) by the author TSB

From the book 100 Great Wonders of Nature by Wagner Bertil

Sahara Desert (North Africa) A truly endless sea of sun-scorched sand, stone and clay, enlivened only by rare green spots of oases and a single river - that’s what the Sahara is. The gigantic scale of this largest desert in the world is simply amazing.

From the book Newest book facts. Volume 1 [Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and Medicine] author

What was the Sahara Desert like? ice age? During the Ice Age, much of Europe was covered with ice, causing North Africa It rained much more often than in our days, and therefore the current Sahara Desert was a green country. The drying up of the Sahara has begun

From book 3333 tricky questions and answer author Kondrashov Anatoly Pavlovich

What was the Sahara Desert like during the Ice Age? During the Ice Age, a large part of Europe was covered with ice, which is why it rained much more often in North Africa than today, and therefore the current Sahara Desert was a green country. The drying up of the Sahara has begun

From the book The Complete Encyclopedia of Our Misconceptions author

From the book The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Our Misconceptions [with illustrations] author Mazurkevich Sergei Alexandrovich

Desert Our ideas about the desert are associated with heat, lack of water, cloudless skies, and a mercilessly scorching sun. We remember dust storms that we ourselves have experienced or about which we have heard and read a lot, about shifting sands or clayey soils devoid of vegetation.

From the book The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Our Misconceptions [with transparent pictures] author Mazurkevich Sergei Alexandrovich

From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 1. Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and medicine author Kondrashov Anatoly Pavlovich

From the book A Guide to Survival in extreme situations author Molodan Igor

Desert (savanna) The daily rate of water consumption in the desert is at least 4 liters. Open reservoirs. Rivers, lakes and streams of oases. The water in oases is polluted, has many mechanical impurities and is saturated with microorganisms, so it can only be consumed after filtering