The Sahara Desert - Africa

The Sahara desert is located in Africa and spreads across many countries in Northern Africa. Cold Antarctica and Arctic deserts are bigger in size than the Sahara desert. This article will share interesting facts about the Sahara desert.

Sahara Desert – Largest Hot Desert in the World

• The Sahara desert is the largest hot desert in the world.
• The Sahara desert covers 10 different countries — they are Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan, and Tunisia.
• The Sahara desert has dry valleys, mountains, salt flats, barren and rocky plateaus, and sand dunes.
• There are 20 lakes in the Sahara desert and almost all of them are saltwater lakes.
• The only freshwater lake in the Sahara desert is Lake Chad.
• The Sahara desert receives less than 1 inch of rain every year.
• The Sahara desert is the hottest desert in the world.
• The hottest temperature recorded in the Sahara desert was 58 degrees celsius.
• Several volcanic, deeply dissected mountains rise from the Sahara desert. Emi Koussi, in the Tibesti range of Northern Chad, is the highest peak in the Sahara desert.
• The important cities located in the Sahara desert are Faya-Largeau in Chad, Ghat in Libya, Timbuktu in Mali, Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, etc.

Sahara Desert – Size of the Largest Hot Desert in the World

• The length of the Sahara desert is 4,800 km (3,000 mi).
• The width of the Sahara desert is 1,800 km (1,100 mi).
• The Sahara desert covers around 8% of the earth’s total land area.
• The Sahara desert constitutes 31% of the total area of Africa.
• The area of the Sahara desert is 9.2 million square kilometres.

Thar – Largest Hot Desert in India

• The Thar desert, also referred to as the Great Indian Desert, is a large arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.
• About 85% of the Thar Desert is located within India, rest 15% lies in Pakistan
• 60% of the desert lies in the Indian state of Rajasthan, and it spreads into other states of Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, and the Pakistani province of Sindh.
• The Thar desert is the world’s 9th largest subtropical desert.
• Thar desert is the world’s 17th largest desert.
• The desert stretches to an area of 200,000 sq km (77,000 sq mi) and forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan.

Related Links

• Describe the location and extent of the Thar desert in India
• CBSE Class 7 Geography Notes Chapter 9 – Life in the Deserts
• NCERT Solutions for Class 7 Geography Social Science Chapter 9 Life in The Deserts
• Largest Deserts in the World for General Awareness
• Great Indian Desert (Thar Desert) – Facts for UPSC Geography