Desert

Sahara

Dust storms carry about 40 million tons of Saharan dust across the Atlantic to the Amazon River Basin each year.

Source: science.nasa.gov

Find Sahara on the map

The largest desert outside the poles

The Sahara is the largest desert on Earth outside the polar regions. Parts of it receive only a few tens of millimetres of rain in a typical year, which is why its landscapes are famous for being bare and dry.

Source: science.nasa.gov

When the rain does come

On 7 and 8 September 2024, an extratropical cyclone swept across the north-western Sahara and soaked treeless parts of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya that rarely see rain. Satellite estimates put the totals at many tens of millimetres, and more than 200 millimetres in places: roughly what the region usually receives in a whole year.

Source: science.nasa.gov

Lakes that come and go

Some Saharan lakes are normally dry. After the 2024 storm, Sebkha el Melah in Algeria began to fill, and by 16 October water covered 191 square kilometres to a depth of 2.2 metres. Researchers who studied the rain events over its watershed since 2000 found that only six of hundreds had brought enough water to start filling it.

Source: science.nasa.gov

A greener past

The Sahara has not always been a desert. Roughly 11,000 to 5,000 years ago, during the African Humid Period, it was probably far wetter. Geological and archaeological evidence suggests that plants, wetlands and perhaps large lakes covered ground that is sand today.

Source: science.nasa.gov

Where it is

Location of Sahara on a world map.

On the Atlas Quest map, the Sahara label sits at 22.2° N, 12.3° E, in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres.

Coordinates, names: Natural Earth, public domain.

Nearby places

The closest other places with pages here, measured between map label points:

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