Sahara Desert Interesting Facts

In this article we will discuss about one of the largest Desert in the world naming as Sahara Desert. It is world largest Hot desert and it came at no. 3 in terms of desert areas i.e. after Antarctica and Arctic deserts which are cold deserts. There are following fascinating facts about Sahara Desert: -

1.       It covers an area of 9.2 million square Km which is equivalent to area of China which has area of 9.6 million square km. Length of this desert is 4800 km and width of the same is 1800 km.

2.       Sahara Desert received poorest of rainfall which is only 3 inches i.e. 76 millimeters of rain every year.

3.       This desert is spread over 11 countries, country names are as Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Mali, Libya, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan, Chad, Mauritania.

4.       Highest temperature recorded in this desert is in Aziziyah, Libya which was 58 degrees Celsius.

5.       Sahara covers 8% of total earth land.

6.       You can find more than 20 lakes in Sahara and all of them are salty lakes except Chad Lake which is fresh water lake.

7.       Name of Sahara is derived from Arabic word SAHRA which means a ‘desert’.

8.       In this desert apart from sand dunes you can find other surfaces such as Stone plains, Plateaus, Mountains where you can find snow and Salt flats.

9.       Height of many sand dunes at Sahara is above 180 meters but the dune with maximum height is found in Chad and it has height of 3415 meters. This was earlier a volcano naming as Mount Koussi.

10.   Sahara is inhabitant to wildlife also which consists of Camels, Monitor Lizards, Ostrich, Cheetah, Deadly Scorpios known as dealthstalker Scorpio, Sand vipers which are extremely Venomous.

11.   It is very interesting to find that people also live there in Sahara Desert and their population is more than 2 million. People which live there are Nomad with changes in seasons they keep moving from one place to other.

12.   Sahara once contained longest fresh water lake in the world naming Chad lake once that lake was as long as covering 360000 square km which is now reduced to just 220 square km.

13.    Sand dunes covers approx. 25% of total desert area.

14.   This desert is having following boundaries: -

(a)    West- Atlantic Ocean

(b)    North- Mediterranean Sea

(c)     East- Red Sea

(d)    South- Sahel Savanna

15.   There 2 permanent rivers which can find here are Nile and Niger

16.   Nile river is the longest river in the world and its length is 6650 km. This river is also known as father of African rivers.

17.   In Sahara you can find a most weird thing known as eye of Sahara which resembles like a bullseye and is located in Western Sahara. This is so large that it can be seen from sky.

This eye is also called as Richat Structure. This eye of Sahara is about 40 km in diameter. This consists of concentric circles which are made from rocks of different ages.

18.   Most dangerous place on earth is in Sahara Desert and it is called as Kem Kem Group and this area is of cretaceous rock formation along the Algeria-Morocco border in South-Eastern Morocco.

19.   There are also important trade routes across this desert for economic activities of Ancient Africa. The things such as Gold, Slaves, Cloths , Salt etc. are transported through this desert by using caravan of Camels.

20.   There is town in Algeria naming as Ain Sefra which is known as Gateway of Sahara Desert.