10 Interesting Facts About the Sahara Desert

The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert; covering an area of more than 9 million square km. With a daunting climate, the Sahara is one of the harshest environments on the planet; temperature reaching above 50 °C in many places. The Sahara is one of the two major Eco-regions in Africa, another is Sub-Saharan Africa. let us know some more interesting and amazing facts about the world’s largest hot desert.

Largest hot desert

Antarctica and Arctic deserts are the cold deserts and the Sahara is a hot desert. The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert. It roughly comprises the 31% area of the continent of Africa.

Bordered by water and grassland

The Sahara is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea in the north, the Atlantic ocean in the west, the Red Sea in the east, and the Sahel (Semi-grassland) in the south.

Covers several African nations

The Sahara is spread across throughout North Africa. It comprises several nations; Algeria, Libya, Chad, Egypt, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan, and Tunisia.

Although it is desert, crops grow here

There are several crops and plants which are grown even today in the Sahara. Some very popular of them are Laperrine’s Olive Tree, Doum Palm Tree, Sahara Love-grass, Wild Desert Gourd, Nitraria Retusa, Date Palm Tree, Desert Thyme, Tobacco Tree, Tamarisk Shrub, Ephedra Alata, etc.

Low precipitation

The Sahara is one of the driest spots in the world and driest in Africa. On average, it receives only 4 inches of rainfall every year.

Home to 20 million people

Despite being very hot, people live here. There are 11 countries, which are located in the Sahara and about 20 million people are residing in these countries.

Nomads

People live in the Sahara are mostly nomads. They wander in search of food from places to places. Tuareg people and Sahrawi people are the two main nomadic ethnic groups which are living in the region for thousands of years.

Famous for sand dunes

The Sahara is a very popular spot for its picturesque beauty of sand dunes. Dune is a hill of loose sand built by the flow of wind.

One River crosses the Sahara

Rivers and streams are seasonal or very rare except the Nile River, world’s longest river. It rises from central Africa and empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

The Great Wall of Africa

Like the Great Wall of China, there lies a wall in Africa which is called “Moroccan Western Sahara Wall,” which is a 2700 km long wall (only 13% of the Great Wall of China). The wall was made in the 1980's to separate Morocco from the Polisario, a group of Sahrawi Republic independence fighters.