The Sahara, a term that means “great desert,” is the hottest desert in the world. It is also the largest desert in the world near Antarctica. The Sahara Desert covers a vast region of North Africa. The complete desert encompasses and crosses 11 countries, including Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia.
The Sahara desert stretches from east to west about 1,610 kilometers, or about 1,000 miles wide and nearly 5,150 kilometers or 3,200 miles long. The whole desert has a total of about 9.1 million square kilometers or more than 3 and a half million square miles.
Desert land formations are formed by wind (eolo) or irregular precipitation. Some areas receive less than 10 inches of rain per year, and some years have no rain. In the desert in huge sand dunes. The Sahara also consists of sandy seas (also called erg), stone plateaus (also called hamad), gravel plains (also called reg), salt flats (also called shutt), and dry valleys (also called wadi),
The Red Sea and Egypt tied up the desert in the east, the Atlantic Ocean in the west, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Mountains in the north and the valley of the Niger River in the south.
In the Western Sahara, reliefs have different heights due to the wide sand dunes and boulder plains. The rainfall is very minimal and has almost no surface of the water, but has a number of groundwater streams that flow from the mountains. The waters find their way to the surface and become oases. Plants in this area grow freely due to the rich soil and possibly water supply, which leads to an excellent plant.
In the northern and southern parts of the Sahara, there is a region of thin pastures, taller trees and desert shrubs, where moisture accumulates. The northern borders of the Sahara annually produce 100 mm of rain.
The Sahara reaches the Mediterranean and parts of Libya in the northern limit. It has a Mediterranean climate, such as the rainy season. The southern borders of the Sahara annually cause about 150 mm of precipitation. In the central Sahara, this region is hyper-arid, and only a few flora and fauna survive.
The Libyan desert in the Sahara is considered the driest or driest, since there are only a few oases here, where there is almost no moisture. The reliefs consist of huge sand dunes with a height of about 122 meters (400 feet) or more. The Libyan desert is almost devoid of any form of animal or vegetation.
Amy Kussi - the highest peak in the Sahara. This is a volcano-shield located in the Tibetan region of northern Chad. The volcano reaches 3,444 meters at a height and rises to 2,300 meters above the boulder plains. The volcano has a width of 60x80 km.
Two calderas closed the volcano, and the outer caldera was about 12x15 km in size, while the smaller caldera was about 2 - 3 km wide and 350 m deep. A variety of cones, lava domes, lava flows and maars are found in the calderas and along the outer sides of the shield.
The Nile River is the longest river in the world and the main river in Africa. It is said that this is the life blood of the Sahara, because a very large part of the desert is irrigated, about 3.4 million square meters. Km.
The Nile River has two tributaries: the White Nile, which starts from the Great Lakes to the north, touching Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan; and Blue Nile, which starts from Lake Tana and Sudan. The northern part of the river flows completely through the desert, from Sudan to Egypt.
