Sahara Trivia | 40 facts about the African desert

Sahara is one of most popular deserts in the world. It is located in Africa, and many countries “share” its pretty dry field.

Let’s find out more about Shara desert!

1. The Sahara is a desert on the African continent.
2. It is also known as ‘the Greatest Desert’).
3. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world.
4. It is the third largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.
5. The name “Sahara” is derived from the Arabic word for “desert” in the feminine irregular form, the singular ṣaḥra
6. The desert comprises much of North Africa.
7. It excludes the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan.
8. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west.
9. This is where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains.
10. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa.
11. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert.
12. For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000 year cycle.
13. This was caused by the precession of the Earth’s axis as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African Monsoon.
14. The area is next expected to become green in about 15,000 years (17,000 CE).
15. The Sahara is the world’s largest low-latitude hot desert.
16. It is located in the horse latitudes under the subtropical ridge, a significant belt of semi-permanent subtropical warm-core high pressure where the air from the upper troposphere usually descends, warming and drying the lower troposphere and preventing cloud formation
17. During the summer months, temperatures in the Sahara average between a sizzling 38-46°C.
18. It spans some 8,600,000 square kilometres. However, this changes over time as the actual area of the desert expands and contracts with the seasons.
19. Scientists estimate that the Sahara’s overall size has grown to be 10% larger than it was nearly a century ago.
20. While this is partly due to natural climate cycles, human-driven climate change is also responsible.
21. Spanning nearly a third of the African continent, the Sahara reaches a total of 11 countries.
22. These include Egypt, Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Western Sahara and Tunisia.
23. Sand dunes and sheets cover only around 25% of the Sahara’s actual surface.
24. This desert also has numerous other land features including salt flats, gravel plains, plateaus and even mountains where snow has been recorded.
25. Many of the Sahara’s sand dunes reach over 180 metres in height.
26. Despite the previous fact this desert’s highest point is an extinct volcano called Mount Koussi in Chad, which has an elevation of 3,415 metres.
27. It may be one of the harshest environments on Earth, but the Sahara is home to a variety of wildlife that has adapted to a life of extremes with camels and goats, desert species include cheetah, gazelles, ostrich, Fennec fox and monitor lizards.
28. More deadly critters include the deathstalker scorpion and the extremely venomous sand viper.
29. Around 2.5 million people also call the Sahara home, most of which have Berber or Arabic roots. They either live in permanent settlements near water sources or have a nomadic lifestyle, travelling from place to place with herds of sheep, goats or camels.
30. Saharan trade routes played an important part in the economies of Ancient Africa. Goods such as copper, salt and gold were transporting using camel caravans, which in their heyday consisted of thousands of camels. There’s even a record that mentions caravans of 12,000 camels travelling between Egypt and Sudan.
31. Dunes are hills made of sand. Some dunes in the Sahara can reach over 500 feet tall.
32. Ergs are large areas of sand. They are sometimes called sand seas.
33. Regs are flat plains that are covered with sand and hard gravel.
34. Hamadas are hard and barren rocky plateaus.
35. Salt Flats are a flat area of land covered with sand, gravel, and salt.
36. Even though it is difficult to survive in the desert, some powerful civilizations have formed in the Sahara. Larger cities and farming villages tend to form along rivers and oases.
37. For example, the Ancient Egyptians and the Kingdom of Kush formed great civilizations along the Nile River.
38. Some peoples, like the Berbers, survive by being nomads. They constantly move around to find new areas to graze their livestock and hunt for food.
39. Despite its large size, only around 2.5 million people live in the Sahara Desert.
40. The most common language spoken in the Sahara is Arabic.