Deserts located in Africa. Deserts of Africa: Sahara, Namib, Kalahari

2024 Author: Harold Hamphrey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:06

Namib, Sahara and Kalahari are the most popular deserts located in Africa. We will travel through these lands today.

Deserts of South Africa

Namib, Sahara and Kalahari represent a complex of three deserts, which are located in the southern part of the country. The African people are not only proud of them, but from year to year they receive guests from different parts of the world in their native spaces. For them, in turn, the deserts located in Africa are attractive and serve as a source of the unknown.

What does the word "desert" mean

Already from the first sound, it becomes clear that its designation can be interpreted as something empty, deserted. Indeed, it is. But to be completely accurate and characterize this phenomenon from a scientific point of view, then a desert is a territory with a predominantly flat surface and a complete (or partial) absence of fauna and flora.

Mysterious Africa

But the answer to the following question interests many from time to timegeography lovers and just curious people. How many sandy deserts are there in Africa?

According to various sources, the answer to the question asked consists of only two points and includes the Namib and Sahara deserts. While the Kalahari belongs to the type of rocky-clay desert.

Deserts of Africa: Sahara, Namib, Kalahari

Most likely, there are no people in the world who have not heard about the existence of these truly amazing places at least once. And even more so, few will argue with the statement that the deserts of South Africa are nature of amazing beauty. The first of these - the Sahara desert - is the largest and most majestic in the world.

Sugar

Many people know that the deserts located in Africa, for the most part consist of sand. The Sahara was no exception. It is a quarter filled with hot sands. But it was not always so. Once upon a time, about 10 to 2 thousand years ago, abundant waters flowed in its place. Yes, it's hard to believe. But this is true. In those days, the now arid desert was a steppe - savannah, in which everyday life flowed. This and other facts are confirmed by the opinion of scientists, one of whom is Leo Frobenius. In 1933, he discovered rock paintings in the Sahara with images of various animals: lions, bulls, ostriches, elephants, goats, antelopes, rhinos and hippos.

Currently, the area of the desert occupiesalmost the entire northern part of Africa and is more than nine million square meters. The Sahara desert in Africa is wide. Animals and plants, although preserved in it, are gradually continuing their extinction.

On the territory of the desert, states are partially located, which include the well-known Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, Egypt, Chad, Niger and Sudan. And more than eighty percent of it is covered by plains, sometimes reaching a height of 500 meters above sea level.

The northeastern part of the Sahara is strewn with depressions (Kattara, El-Fuym and others).

The central part of it consists of mountain ranges. The most famous among them are Tibesti and Ahaggar.

Sahara is a source of oil, iron ore, phosphate rock and natural gas.

Its climate is definitely tropical desert, because it rarely gets more than 50 millimeters of rain per month in the desert, and the air temperature in mid-January never drops below 10 degrees.

Namib

It is located in the southwestern side of Africa, and its length is more than one and a half thousand kilometers. If its predecessor is the most majestic of the deserts in the world, then the Namib serves as the oldest of the entire family. Its age ranges from at least 60-80 million years. Her review is unique. On its territory you can find canyons of dry rivers, weathered rocks, majestic dunes and many other wonderful paintings.

Despite the fact that the desert rarely receives more than one millimeter of precipitation a year, it remains filled with vitality day after day. This is confirmed by numerous representatives of the fauna. These are antelopes and gazelles, elephants and rhinos, ostriches and giraffes. Moreover, each of them can be photographed and personally convinced of their unsurpassed grandeur and beauty.

The plant side of the desert is in no way inferior to the animal side. In Namibia, an amazing desert rose, both in appearance and in name, grows, located in Africa, ancient specimens of which reach an age mark of up to two millennia.

Of course, you can't ignore Namibia's most famous landmark, its Naukluvt National Park. There are countless landscape memorials on its territory.

The local climate is very dry and daily temperature fluctuations can reach 40 degrees.

Kalahari

It is considered the largest among the African deserts in the southern part of the country. Its area covers approximately 600 thousand square kilometers.

The climate in the territory is dry and tropical with maximum rainfall in summer and fairly mild winters.

Kalahari is a point quite remote from the central part of the country, but at the same time no less popular place for an inexhaustible tourist flow. After all, what emotions does a wandering people experience in trying todevelopment, worth the kilometers travelled.

The desert is worth visiting though for the extraordinary beauty of the sunset, the scarlet color of which smoothly turns into a reddish hue of grape berries against the background of snow-white sand.

The animals of the desert are as majestic as she is. Lions and cheetahs, antelopes and hyenas - they can be seen in the expanses of the Kalahari.

Regardless of the circumstances that would seem to cause the complete absence of plant life in the desert, it is relatively rich. The most common species include various herbs, shrubs and acacias.

Desert Africa

This is one of the greatest places on earth, and worth a visit without the slightest doubt at any opportunity that not everyone gets.

Don't take these places as something terrible. Remember that most of these associations come from watching science fiction and adventure films, and suddenly you find that there really is nothing to be afraid of.

And a few more words

Africa: hot deserts, endless savannahs… What could be more beautiful for a freshly baked or seasoned tourist? Perhaps nothing. And it’s not in vain that they say that visiting this country and not seeing at least one desert is the same as not looking at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In other words, absolutely pointless!