Deserts in Africa

Although there are many deserts in Africa, here we showcase profiles of the main deserts. Others such as the Blue Desert, whilst technically in Egypt, are actually on the Arabian peninsula. The biggest deserts in Africa, including the Libyan Desert and the Algerian desert, are part of the Sahara Desert, the world's second largest desert after Antarctica (deserts are defined as areas with negligible rainfall.) The Sahara covers approximately 10% of the land mass of Africa measuring 3.5 million square miles.

The other main deserts in Africa are the Kalahari Desert which covers parts of South Africa and Namibia as well as most of Botswana; the Karoo Desert of South Africa; the Namib Desert which runs 1,200 miles along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa; the Nubian Desert in north-east Sudan located between the Nile and the Red Sea and the Owami Desert desert in Nigeria which is again part of the Sahara desert.With the Sahara encroaching southwards into the Sahel (the zone between the Sahara and its southern savannahs), Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan are planning to build a Great Green Wall  some 9 miles wide and 4400 miles long from Dakar to Djibouti of woodlands and greenery to stop the creeping sands and prevent soil erosion.

The project is being coordinated by the Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) and African Union and it is hoped to create a continuous barrier whilst avoiding inhabited areas and natural obstacles such as mountains and other rocky terrains. The ambitious project is due to commence shortly and is explored in further detail in this video documentary below. Our profiles of all the main deserts in Africa include facts and figures about each desert together with video clips. These deserts have a fascinating history and are home to large fossil remains and ancient structures.

Great Green Wall

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Deserts in Africa: Sahara Desert The Sahara Desert, named after the Arabic word for desert ~ sahra, is the second largest desert in the world covering an area of some 3,630,000 square miles with sand dunes 590 feet tall, the only larger desert being in Antarctica. More >

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Deserts in Africa: Karoo Desert The Karoo desert is located in South Africa and is acknowledged as being one of the biggest and most important fossil deposit sites in the world with creatures such as the Pareiasaurus (a hippo-crocodile combo) and the Diictodon being found dating back some 240 million years. More >

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Deserts in Africa: White Desert The White Desert, named after its chalk formations, is a 116 square mile protectorate located in western Egypt and however its abundance of fossils including sea shells serve as a reminder that the barren desert landscape was once under water. More >

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Deserts in Africa: Namib Desert The Nambi Desert is the oldest desert in the world and covers an area of some 31,200 square miles as it rolls along the Atlantic coastline for 1200 miles with sand dunes higher than any where else on the planet created by the ocean winds, some reaching 980 feet high. More >

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Deserts in Africa: Kalahari Desert The Kalahari desert is a semi-desert of reddish sand that covers an area slightly more than a third of a million square miles covering much of Botswana and extending into Namibia and South Africa and as far as Zimbabwe located between the Orange and Zambezi rivers. More >

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Deserts in Africa: Nubian Desert The Nubian Desert is an expanse of some 154,440 square miles of rocks strewn between the Red Sea and the River Nile in north-east Sudan that is mainly rocks on a sandstone plateau. More >

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Deserts in Africa: Algerian Desert Whilst part of the Sahara Desert, The three and a half million square miles are also known as the Algerian Desert and is one of the driest places on earth yet is still home to 165,000 Saharawis living in semi autonomous refugee camps at Tindouf. More >

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Deserts in Africa: Libyan Desert The Libyan Desert went largely uncharted until 1924 when the explorer Ahmed Hassanein undertook a 2200 mile expedition deep into the heart of the desert, discovering the Jebel Uweinat mountain ~ Mountain of Sourcelets ~ on the Egyptian, Libyan and Sudanese border. More >

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