The Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert covers 3,500,000 square miles (9,100,000 square kilometers) of northern Africa. It covers all or part of the following countries: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. The Sahara Desert is the largest desert in the world.

The Sahara is covered by many landforms. There are mountain ranges, plateaus, plains, and sand dunes called ergs. Under the lands of the Sahara are deposits of oil and natural gas.

Although the Sahara covers a huge amount of space and many countries, there are not very many people living there. Most of the people living in the Sahara live near desert oases and the Nile River.

The Sahara Desert is one of the world's hot deserts. It has very high daytime temperatures, but when the sun goes down, the temperatures drop quickly! The highest temperature ever recorded was in the Sahara Desert. Al Aziziyah, Libya recorded a temperature of 136°F (58°C).