Question

Describe the characteristics of the Sahara Desert. Write a paragraph of at least 5 complete sentences discussing the Sahara’s location, size, features, and climate.

Answer 1

The Sahara Desert occupies much of North Africa, stretching from the Atlantic coast in the west to the Red Sea in the east and lying between the Mediterranean and the Sahel across parts of Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya, Chad, Sudan and Egypt. Covering about 9.2 million square kilometers (roughly 3.6 million square miles), it is the largest hot desert on Earth and the third-largest desert overall after Antarctica and the Arctic. Its landscape is diverse rather than uniformly sandy: there are vast sand seas or ergs with towering dunes, extensive gravel plains called regs, rocky plateaus (hamadas), mountain ranges such as the Ahaggar and Tibesti, intermittent riverbeds (wadis), salt flats and scattered oases that support human settlement. The climate is overwhelmingly arid to hyperarid, with central regions receiving less than 25 mm of rain per year and even marginal areas seldom exceeding a few hundred millimeters; evaporation far exceeds precipitation. Temperatures are extreme — very hot by day in summer, with large diurnal swings that can bring chilly nights and cooler winters at higher elevations — and the desert is frequently affected by strong dry winds and dust storms that shape its surface and limit vegetation.