The Sahara, Earth's Largest Hot Desert (with Map & Photos)

Deserts, such as the Sahara desert (الصحراء الكبرى), are areas of the earth's surface that receive less than 25 cm of rain each year and are areas that contain little or no vegetation. Deserts are considered useful natural laboratories for studying the interactions of wind and, sometimes, water on the arid surfaces of the planets. They contain valuable mineral deposits that were formed in the arid environment or exposed by erosion.

Sahara Desert
Sahara Desert

Sahara Desert Location


The Sahara Desert is located in North Africa, occupies about a quarter of the mainland and is the largest of the tropical deserts on the planet. Geographically covers the southern regions of Morocco and Tunisia, most of Egypt, Algeria, Mauritania and Libya, the northern territories of Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan. The maximum length from the northern tip to the southern one is about 2000 km, and from the western to the eastern one - 5700 km. Since the boundaries of the Sahara are defined by individual researchers in different ways, the estimates of the area vary - from 6 to 8 million km².

Sahara Desert
Sahara Desert

Origin


Millions of years ago, it was a region of savannahs and lush grasslands filled with forests and was home to hunters and gatherers who lived on animals and plants, when it was known as Green Sahara. The origin of this desert occurs because there are no rains that manage to maintain a balance in the evaporation caused by the sun's rays and by the transpiration of the plants that extract water from the places where it is stored. Its origin was the product of a cyclical phenomenon from greater to lesser insolation.

Sahara Desert History


The great Sahara desert was born approximately 7 million years ago, when the remains of a vast sea called Tethys dried up. Trade across this desert has its origins dating back millions of years to trading with oxen and carts. In the 8th century, trade had a greater importance and reached its maximum expression in the 13th and 16th centuries.

Sahara Desert
Sahara Desert

At the beginning it was a green territory full of forests and savannahs, with a large amount of fauna, however, little by little it became the largest desert on the planet as a result of a slow and progressive process that began approximately 6,000 years ago and ended 6,000 years ago. 2,700 years.

Sahara Desert Map