Namib Desert

If you were wondering what is the oldest desert in the world well, at 55 million years old, in first place comes the Namib Desert in Namibia and south-west Angola covering an area of some 31,200 square miles. The Namib Desert rolls along the Atlantic coastline for 1200 miles and has sand dunes higher than anywhere else on the planet with some dunes reaching 980 feet high (Ben Nevis is only 4.5x higher), created by the ocean winds. Although the desert is long, it only averages seventy miles wide. Part of the Namib Desert encompasses the Namib Naukluft Park, one of the oldest and largest national parks in Africa, also the fourth largest game reserve in the world where steenbok, springboks, oryx, kudus, mountain zebras, dassie rats, chacma baboons, rock dassies, klipspringers and around two hundred bird species make their home.

Although some areas of the Namib desert are becoming popular tourist attractions, particularly the dunes, much of the desert is inaccessible and devoid of human life, with settlements restricted to areas including Walvis Bay and Swakopmund bordering on the desert. The short video below contains pictures and images of the Namib desert providing a good overview of the desert and conditions there where some areas get less than 0.4 inches of rainfall a year.

Namib Desert Video

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Namib Desert: Namibia Webcam This desert webcam streams live from the Gondwana Namib Park in Namibia and you should be able to see gazelles, giraffes, wildebeests, mountain zebras, ostriches, warthogs, porcupines, hyenas, cheetahs, panthers, jackals, and foxes among other wildlife. Visit >

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Namib Desert: Main Deserts Information about the largest deserts of Africa which you may visit when volunteering there. More >

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