Over one-third of the African continent is covered by desert, from the Mediterranean to South Africa and the Indian to the Atlantic oceans. With this definition in mind, it’s generally accepted that there are nine unique deserts in Africa, though some of the larger deserts are sometimes split into regions, leading to more desert names. Africa has the most named deserts of any continent, containing at least ten distinct deserts. These deserts cover about one third of the continent’s land area and come in many forms.
Most of Africa’s deserts sit near the Tropic of Cancer or Tropic of Capricorn. These zones fall under a global wind pattern that suppresses rainfall. Dry air descends in these regions, warming as it sinks. That prevents cloud formation and blocks precipitation. Africa is also shaped by vast plateaus and inland basins that trap heat. With few mountain ranges to block or redirect air currents, hot, dry winds dominate. These conditions are intensified by the Hadley Cell circulation pattern.
Here is a list of some of the most prominent deserts in Africa:
1. Sahara Desert
The Sahara is the largest desert in Africa, and the largest hot desert in the world - with summer temperatures reaching 122 °F (50 °C) - and stretching across 12 North African countries.
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The Sahara is not one huge, uniform desert, but is made up of many regions, each with their own rainfall levels, temperatures, plants, and wildlife. The Sahara, (from Arabic ṣaḥrāʾ, “desert”) largest hot desert in the world. The name Sahara derives from the Arabic noun ṣaḥrāʾ, meaning desert, and its plural, ṣaḥārāʾ. It is also related to the adjective aṣḥar, meaning desertlike and carrying a strong connotation of the reddish colour of the vegetationless plains.
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The principal topographical features of the Sahara include shallow, seasonally inundated basins (chotts and dayas) and large oasis depressions; extensive gravel-covered plains (serirs or regs); rock-strewn plateaus (hammadas); abrupt mountains; and sand sheets, dunes, and sand seas (ergs). The highest point in the desert is the 11,204-foot (3,415-metre) summit of Mount Koussi in the Tibesti Mountains in Chad. The lowest, 436 feet (133 metres) below sea level, is in the Qattara Depression of Egypt.
The Sahara sits atop the African Shield, which is composed of heavily folded and denuded Precambrian rocks. Because of the stability of the shield, subsequently deposited Paleozoic formations have remained horizontal and relatively unaltered. Over much of the Sahara, these formations were covered by Mesozoic deposits-including the limestones of Algeria, southern Tunisia, and northern Libya, and the Nubian sandstones of the Libyan Desert-and many of the important regional aquifers are identified with them.
In the northern Sahara, these formations are also associated with a series of basins and depressions extending from the oases of western Egypt to the chotts of Algeria. In the southern Sahara, downwarping of the African Shield created large basins occupied by Cenozoic lakes and seas, such as the ancient Mega-Chad. The serirs and regs differ in character in various regions of the desert but are believed to represent Cenozoic depositional surfaces. A prominent feature of the plains is the dark patina of ferromanganese compounds, called desert varnish, that forms on the surfaces of weathered rocks.
Sand sheets and dunes cover approximately 25 percent of the Sahara’s surface. The principal types of dunes include tied dunes, which form in the lee of hills or other obstacles; parabolic blowout dunes; crescent-shaped barchans and transverse dunes; longitudinal seifs; and the massive, complex forms associated with sand seas. Several pyramidal dunes in the Sahara attain heights of nearly 500 feet, while draa, the mountainous sand ridges that dominate the ergs, are said to reach 1,000 feet. An unusual phenomenon associated with desert sands is their “singing” or booming.
2. Kalahari Desert
The semi-arid Kalahari Desert lies in the heart of southern Africa, covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. Some academics maintain that because parts of the Kalahari receive more than 10 inches of rain annually it’s not a true desert.
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Unique features of the Kalahari Desert are the prominent sand dunes and huge salt pans left behind by long ago dried up lakes. The Okavango River runs through the Kalahari, and other non-permanent water sources appear during the rainy season. Because of this access to water, the Kalahari is home to lions, brown hyenas, meerkats, antelopes, and a wide variety of birds and reptiles. It is also known as the red desert for its immense extensions of reddish sand.
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savannah. Woodland, Bri Jumps, Strandveld, and Savanna are other geographical terms used to describe the Kalahari Desert. Despite its harsh conditions, the Kalahari Desert is home to numerous plant and animal species that are found nowhere else. The Kalahari is home to a number of wildlife reserves in Botswana. These include Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the adjacent Khutse Game Reserve. In the Kalahari’s north are Makgadikgadi Pans and Nxai Pan National Parks.
The driest areas usually receive 110-200 mm (4.3-7.9 in) of rain per year, and the wettest just a little over 500 mm (20 in). The climate is sub-humid rather than semi-arid in the north and east, where the dry forests, savannahs, and salt lakes prevail. South and west, where the vegetation is predominantly xeric savanna or even a semi-desert, the climate is "Kalaharian" semi-arid.
The Kalaharian climate is subtropical: average annual temperature greater than or equal to 18 °C (64 °F), at peaks reaching 40 °C (104 °F) and above, with mean monthly temperature of the coldest month strictly below 18 °C (64 °F), and is semi-arid with the dry season from April to September, the coldest six months of the year. It is the southern tropical equivalent of the Sahelian climate with the wet season during summer.
The southwestern Kalahari is the driest area, particularly a small region toward the west-southwest of Tsaraxaibis (Southeast of Namibia). The average annual rainfall ranges from around 110 mm (close to aridity) to more than 500 mm in some north and east areas. During summertime in all regions, rainfall may go with heavy thunderstorms. The North and Northwest of the Kalahari are subject to the alternation "Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)/"Continental Trade winds". In the southern hemisphere summer (from December to February), a low-pressure system develops over the Kalahari, which is driven by strong surface heating (known as a Thermal Low).
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There are huge subterranean water reserves beneath parts of the Kalahari; the Dragon's Breath Cave, for example, is the largest documented non-subglacial underground lake. Such reserves may partly be the residues of ancient lakes; the Kalahari Desert was once a much wetter place. The ancient Lake Makgadikgadi dominated the area, covering the Makgadikgadi Pan and surrounding areas, but it drained or dried out some 10,000 years ago. It may have once covered as much as 120,000 square kilometres (46,000 sq mi).
The Kalahari has had a complex climatic history over the past million or so years, in line with major global changes. Changes in the last 250,000 years have been reconstructed from various data sources, providing evidence of former extensive lakes and drier periods. Due to its low aridity, the Kalahari supports a variety of flora. Even where the Kalahari "desert" is dry enough to qualify as a desert in the sense of having low precipitation, it is not strictly speaking a desert because it has too dense a ground cover.
The main region that lacks ground cover is in the southwest Kalahari (southeast of Namibia, northwest of South Africa, and southwest of Botswana) in the south of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. For instance, in the ZF Mgcawu District Municipality of South Africa, total vegetation cover may be as low as 30.72% on non-protected (from cattle grazing) farmlands south of Twee Rivieren Rest Camp and 37.74% in the protected (from cattle grazing) South African side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park:[15] these southernmost Kalahari xeric savanna areas are truly semi-deserts.
In an area of about 600,000 km2 in the south and west of the Kalahari, the vegetation is mainly xeric savanna. This area is the ecoregion identified by World Wide Fund for Nature as Kalahari xeric savanna. In certain areas where the climate is drier, it becomes a true semi-desert with ground not entirely covered by vegetation: "open" as opposed to "closed" vegetation. Examples include the north of the ZF Mgcawu District Municipality, itself in the north of South Africa, and the Keetmanshoop Rural in the southeast of Namibia.
The Kalahari is home to the lion (Panthera leo), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), African leopard (Panthera pardus), spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), brown hyena (Parahyaena brunnea), and African wild dog (Lycaon pictus pictus). Birds of prey include the secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius), martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus) and other eagles, the giant eagle owl (Bubo lacteus) and other owls, falcons, goshawks, kestrels, and kites.
Some of the areas within the Kalahari are seasonal wetlands, such as the Makgadikgadi Pans of Botswana. The San people have lived in the Kalahari for 20,000 years as hunter-gatherers. They hunt wild game with bows and poisoned arrows and gather edible plants, such as berries, melons and nuts, as well as insects. The San get most of their water requirements from plant roots and desert melons found on or under the desert floor.
3. Namib Desert
The Namib Desert stretches along the southern Atlantic Coast of Namibia and is the world's oldest desert. This beautiful desert is known for its distinctive red sand dunes, wide open landscapes, and a rich variety of wildlife. The most iconic creature often found in this desert has to be the majestic desert lion, which is the only cat species on earth that prefers to feed on small mammals rather than larger game.
The Namib Desert has some of the highest dunes on the planet at over 300 meters and is thought to be the world’s oldest desert at around 80 million years old. When the dinosaurs became extinct, this desert already existed. In fact, it is considered the oldest desert in the world, as it is known that it already existed 65 million years ago.
The climate is extremely arid due to interactions between the dry Namib winds and the Atlantic’s Benguela current. It’s these forces that form dense fogs which provide the main water source for many of the desert’s plants and animals. The Namib stretches along Namibia’s Atlantic coast for over 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers). It is one of the oldest deserts on Earth, with parts dating back 55 million years.
4. Libyan Desert
The Libyan Desert dominates the southwestern corner of Egypt and is famous for its ancient rock paintings and engravings which depict the many people who lived in this area. With temperatures ranging from scorching hot to freezing cold, the Libyan Desert is one of the most difficult terrains to navigate in all of Africa. Part of the greater Sahara, the Libyan Desert lies mostly in Libya but extends into Egypt and Sudan.
It’s one of the driest places on Earth. Some areas go decades without measurable rainfall. It is largely uninhabited, but scattered oases allow for small-scale farming and settlement. The harsh conditions have preserved ancient petroglyphs and ruins.
5. Other Deserts in Africa
Besides the Sahara, Kalahari, and Namib, Africa is home to several other notable deserts:
- Danakil Desert: Situated in the Afar Triangle, stretching across northeastern Ethiopia and the coast of southern Eritrea and northwestern Djibouti.
- Nubian Desert: Located in northeastern Sudan and southern Egypt, a rocky extension of the Sahara.
- Ogaden Desert: Located in eastern Ethiopia and parts of northern Somalia, a dry, rugged region dominated by scrubland and sparse vegetation.
- Chalbi Desert: Located to the east of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, one of the hottest and most arid places in Kenya.
- Karoo Desert: A semi-desert region in South Africa, divided into the Great Karoo and Little Karoo.
- Ténéré Desert: A vast expanse of sand in the heart of the Sahara, mostly in Niger, stretching into eastern Chad.
These deserts, each with their unique characteristics, contribute to the diverse and fascinating landscapes of the African continent.
