The Sahara (Arabic Arabic (العربية al-ʿarabīyah, ( Arabic pronunciation ) or عربي ʿarabi) is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. Arabic has more speakers than any other language in the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million: الصحراء الكبرى‎, aṣ-ṣaḥrā´ al-kubra, "The Greatest Desert") is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,400,000 square kilometres (3,630,000 sq mi), it covers most of Northern Africa North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, and, making it almost as large as Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the or the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language. The only larger desert in the world is Antarctica Antarctica (pronounced /ænˈtɑrktɪkə/ ) is Earth's southernmost continent, underlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km2 (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after. The Sahara Desert stretches from the Red Sea The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez . The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion, including parts of the Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a completely coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres , it covers approximately twenty percent of the Earth's surface and about twenty-six percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the ". To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian savannas in the south. It stretches across the north of the African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. The Sahel covers parts of the countries of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger,: a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands are a grassland biome located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and tropical latitudes. Grasslands are dominated by grass and other herbaceous plants. Savannas are grasslands with scattered trees. Shrublands are dominated by woody or herbaceous shrubs that comprises the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara. It contrasts with North Africa, which is considered a part of the Arab world.

Some of the sand dunes can reach 180 metres (590 ft) in height.[1] The name comes from the Arabic word for desert: (صَحراء), "ṣaḥrā´" ( صحراء (help·info); [sˤɑħrɑːʔ]).[2][3]

Contents

Overview

The Sahara's boundaries are the Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres , it covers approximately twenty percent of the Earth's surface and about twenty-six percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the " on the west, the Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range across a northern stretch of Africa extending about 2,500 km (1,500 miles) through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The highest peak is the Toubkal mountain, with an elevation of 4,167 metres (13,671 ft) in southwestern Morocco. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the and the Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a completely separate on the north, the Red Sea The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez . The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion and Egypt Egypt (pronounced /ˈiːdʒɪpt/ ; Arabic: مصر‎ Miṣr, pronounced [misˤɾ] ( listen); Arabic: مِصْر Miṣr [ˈmisˤɾ]; Egyptian Arabic: مَصْر Maṣr [ˈmɑsˤɾ]; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, kīmi; Egyptian: 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 Kemet), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula on the east, and the Sudan The Sudan, from the Arabic bilâd as-sûdân or "land of the Blacks" (an expression denoting West and Central Africa), is a geographic region stretching from West to Eastern Africa. The phrase "The Sudan" is also used by some to refer specifically to the modern-day country of Sudan, the savanna of which forms much of the larger and the valley of the Niger River The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about 4,180 km (2,600 mi). Its drainage basin is 2,117,700 km2 (817,600 sq mi) in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea. It runs in a crescent through Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria, discharging through a massive delta, on the south. The Sahara is divided into western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Air Mountains (a region of desert mountains and high plateaus), Ténéré The Ténéré is a desert region in the south central Sahara. It comprises a vast plain of sand stretching from northeastern Niger into western Chad, occupying an area of over 154,440 square miles . Its boundaries are said to be the Aïr Mountains in the west, the Hoggar Mountains in the north, the Djado Plateau in the northeast, the Tibesti desert and the Libyan desert The Libyan Desert is located in the northern and eastern part of the Sahara Desert. It occupies Egypt west of the Nile (the Egyptian portion is thus called the Western Desert), eastern Libya and northwestern Sudan alongside the Nubian Desert. Covering an area of approximately 1,100,000 square kilometers,[dubious – discuss] it extends (the most arid region). The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi Emi Koussi is a high pyroclastic shield volcano that lies at the south end of the Tibesti Mountains in the central Sahara of northern Chad. It is the highest mountain in Chad, and the highest in the Sahara. The volcano is one of several in the Tibesti massif, and reaches 3445 m in altitude, rising 2.3 km above the surrounding sandstone plains. The (3,415 m/11,204 ft) in the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. Due to its distance from the sea and its largely desert climate, the country is sometimes.

The Sahara divides the continent A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents – they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia of Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population into North North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, and and Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara. It contrasts with North Africa, which is considered a part of the Arab world. The southern border of the Sahara is marked by a band of semiarid savanna A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses. Some classification systems[which?] also recognize a called the Sahel The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian savannas in the south. It stretches across the north of the African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. The Sahel covers parts of the countries of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger,; south of the Sahel lies the lusher Sudan and the Congo River Basin. Most of the Sahara consists of rocky hamada A hamada is a type of desert landscape consisting of largely barren, hard, rocky plateaus, with very little sand. A hamada may sometimes also be called a reg (pronounced "rej"), though this more properly refers to a stony plain rather than a highland; ergs An erg is a large, relatively flat area of desert covered with wind-swept sand with little or no vegetative cover. The term takes its name from the Arabic word erg (عرق), meaning "dune field". Strictly speaking, an erg is defined as a desert area that contains more than 125 square kilometers of aeolian or wind-blown sand and where (large sand dunes In physical geography, a dune is a hill of sand built by aeolian processes. Dunes occur in different forms and sizes, formed by interaction with the wind. Most kinds of dunes are longer on the windward side where the sand is pushed up the dune and have a shorter "slip face" in the lee of the wind. The valley or trough between dunes is) form only a minor part.

People lived on the edge of the desert thousands of years ago[4] since the last ice age An "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. An ice age is a natural system. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses. The Sahara was then a much wetter place than it is today. Over 30,000 petroglyphs Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, pecking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs are found world-wide, and are often ( of river animals such as crocodiles A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all members of the order Crocodilia: i.e. the true crocodiles, the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae) and the gharials (family Gavialidae), or even the Crocodylomorpha which includes prehistoric crocodile relatives and [5] survive, with half found in the Tassili n'Ajjer Tassili n'Ajjer is a mountain range in the Sahara desert in southeast Algeria, North Africa. It extends about 500 km from 26°20′N 5°00′E / 26.333°N 5°E east-south-east to 24°00′N 10°00′E / 24°N 10°E, and the highest point is Adrar Afao, 2158 m, at 25°10′N 8°11′E / 25.167°N 8.183°E. The nearest town is in southeast Algeria Algerian Arabic is the language used by the majority of the population. Although French has no official status, Algeria is the second Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers. Fossils Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how of dinosaurs Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago), when the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event caused the extinction of most dinosaur species, except for some birds. The fossil, including Afrovenator, Jobaria and Ouranosaurus, have also been found here. The modern Sahara, though, is not lush in vegetation, except in the Nile The Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the second longest river in the world Valley, at a few oases In geography, an oasis or cienega (southwestern United States) is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source. Oases also provide habitat for animals and even humans if the area is big enough, and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive The Olive (Olea europaea) is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin (the adjoining coastal areas of southeastern Europe, western Asia and northern Africa) as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea. Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural tree are found to grow. The region has been this way since about 5000 years ago. Some 2.5 million people currently live in the Sahara, most of these in Egypt, Mauritania Mauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in North Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest. It is named after the Roman province of Mauretania, even though the modern state, Morocco Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية, al-Mamlakah al-Maġribiyya), is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of nearly 32 million and an area of 710.850 km², including the disputed Western Sahara which is mainly under Moroccan administration. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that and Algeria Algerian Arabic is the language used by the majority of the population. Although French has no official status, Algeria is the second Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers. Dominant ethnicities in the Sahara are various Berber Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Today many of them speak groups including Tuareg The Tuareg are a Berber nomadic pastoralist people. They are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. They call themselves variously Kel Tamasheq or Kel Tamajaq ("Speakers of Tamasheq"), Imuhagh, Imazaghan or Imashaghen ("the Free people"), or Kel Tagelmust, i.e., "People of the Veil". The tribes, various Arabised Arab people or Arabs (العرب al-ʿarab) are a panethnicity of peoples of various ancestral origins, religious backgrounds and historic identities, whose members, on an individual basis, identify as such on one or more of linguistic, cultural, political, or genealogical grounds. Those self-identifying as Arab, however, rarely do so with it as Berber groups such as the Hassaniya Hassānīya Arabic is an Arabic variety originally spoken by the Beni Hassān Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and the Western Sahara between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has almost completely replaced the Berber languages spoken in this region. Though clearly a western dialect, Hassānīya is-speaking Maure (Moors The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of Berber, Black African and Arab descent from Northern Africa, some of whom came to conquer and occupy the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed other religions. They called the territory Al, also known as Sahrawis), and various black African ethnicities including Toubou, Nubians The Nubians are an ethnic group originally from northern Sudan and southern Egypt, now inhabiting some parts of East Africa, Zaghawa, Kanuri, Peul (Fulani), Hausa and Songhai. Important cities located in the Sahara include Nouakchott (the capital of Mauritania), Tamanrasset, Ouargla, Bechar, Hassi Messaoud, Ghardaia, and El Oued (Algeria), Timbuktu (Mali), Agadez (Niger), Ghat (Libya), as well as Faya-Largeau (Chad).

Geography

A geographical map of Africa, showing the ecological break that defines the Saharan area

The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. It is one of three distinct physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division.

The desert landforms of the Sahara are shaped by wind (Aeolian processes) or by occasional rains, and include sand dunes and dune fields or sand seas (erg), stone plateaus (hamada), gravel plains (reg), dry valleys (wadi), and salt flats (shatt or chott).[6] Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania.

Several deeply dissected mountains and mountain ranges, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas, and the Red Sea hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a shield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad.

Most of the rivers and streams in the Sahara are seasonal or intermittent, the chief exception being the Nile River, which crosses the desert from its origins in central Africa to empty into the Mediterranean. Underground aquifers sometimes reach the surface, forming oases, including the Bahariya, Ghardaïa, Timimoun, Kufrah, and Siwah.

The central part of the Sahara is hyper-arid, with little vegetation. The northern and southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis where moisture collects.

To the north, the Sahara reaches to the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and portions of Libya, but in Cyrenaica and the Magreb, the Sahara borders Mediterranean forest, woodland, and scrub ecoregions of northern Africa, which have a Mediterranean climate characterized by a winter rainy season. According to the botanical criteria of Frank White[7] and geographer Robert Capot-Rey,[8][9] the northern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the northern limit of Date Palm cultivation (Phoenix dactylifera), and the southern limit of Esparto (Stipa tenacissima), a grass typical of the Mediterranean climate portion of the Maghreb and Iberia. The northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm (3.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation.[10]

To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of dry tropical savanna with a summer rainy season that extends across Africa from east to west. The southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha (a drought-tolerant member of the Chenopodiaceae), or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus, a grass typical of the Sahel.[8][9] According to climatic criteria, the southern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm (5.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation (note that this is a long-term average, since precipitation varies strongly from one year to another).[10]

An oasis in the Ahaggar Mountains. Oases are crucial to support life in very arid deserts. An intense Saharan dust storm sent a massive dust plume northwestward over the Atlantic Ocean on March 2, 2003

Climate history

The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variation between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years.[11] During the last glacial period, the Sahara was even bigger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.[12] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BC to 6000 BC, perhaps due to low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north.[13]

Once the ice sheets were gone, northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara though, the drying trend was soon counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. The monsoon is due to heating of air over the land during summer. The hot air rises and pulls in cool, wet air from the ocean, which causes rain. Thus, though it seems counterintuitive, the Sahara was wetter when it received more insolation in the summer. This was caused by a stronger tilt in Earth's axis of orbit than today, and perihelion occurred at the end of July.[14]

By around 3400 BC, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today,[15] leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara.[16] The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.[11] These conditions are responsible for what has been called the Sahara pump theory.

The Sahara has one of the harshest climates in the world. The prevailing north-easterly wind often causes the sand to form sand storms and dust devils.[17] Half of the Sahara receives less than 20 mm (0.79 in) of rain per year, and the rest receives up to 10 cm (3.9 in) per year.[18] The rainfall happens very rarely, but when it does it is usually torrential when it occurs after long dry periods, which can last for years.

The southern boundary of the Sahara, as measured by rainfall, was observed to both advance and retreat between 1980 and 1990. As a result of drought in the Sahel, the southern boundary moved south 130 kilometres (81 mi) overall during that period.[19] Deforestation has also caused the Sahara to advance south in recent years[citation needed], as trees and bushes continue to be used as fuel source.

Recent signals indicate that the Sahara and surrounding regions are greening due to increased rainfall. Satellites show extensive regreening of the Sahel between 1982 and 2002, and in both Eastern and Western Sahara a more than 20 year long trend of increased grazing areas and flourishing trees and shrubs has been observed by climate scientist Stefan Kröpelin.[20]

Snow and ice

On February 18, 1979, snowfall in several places in southern Algeria, including a half-hour snowstorm that stopped traffic in Ghardaïa, was reported in newspapers around the world as '[snow in the Sahara] for the first time in living memory'.[21] The snow was gone within hours.[22]

Several Saharan mountain ranges, however, receive snow on a more regular basis. Although relative humidity is low in the arid environment, the absolute humidity is sufficiently high to condense when driven up a mountain range. In winter, temperatures drop low enough on the 3,003 meters (9,852 ft) Tahat summit, highest peak of the Ahaggar Mountains, to cause snow every third year; the inaccessible Tibesti Mountains are said to receive snow on peaks over 2,500 meters (8,202 ft) every seventh year.[23][24]

Ecoregions

The major topographic features of the Saharan region.

The Sahara comprises several distinct ecoregions, whose variations in temperature, rainfall, elevation, and soils harbor distinct communities of plants and animals. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the ecoregions of the Sahara include:

Flora and fauna

Shadows of camels with travelers on dunes in Tunisia

There exist other animals in the Sahara (birds in particular) such as African Silverbill and Black-throated Firefinch among others.

The central Sahara is estimated to include only five hundred species of plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, either by reducing water loss or storing water. Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover. Human activities are more likely to affect the habitat in areas of permanent water (oases) or where water comes close to the surface. Here, the local pressure on natural resources can be intense. The remaining populations of large mammals have been greatly reduced by hunting for food and recreation. In recent years development projects have started in the deserts of Algeria and Tunisia using irrigated water pumped from underground aquifers. These schemes often lead to soil degradation and salinization.

History

Photo of the Sahara from 1908

Berbers

Berbers are one of the oldest known inhabitants of the Sahara Desert.[citation needed] They are the people that occupied (and still occupy) more than two thirds of the Sahara's total surface.[citation needed]The Garamantes Berbers built a prosperous empire in the heart of the desert.[citation needed] The Tuareg nomads continue, to present day, to inhabit and move across wide Sahara surfaces in Algeria, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and Libya. Some of the oldest Berber Tifinagh inscriptions are found in Southern Algeria, Northern Mali and Niger.[citation needed]

Egyptians

By 6000 BC predynastic Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings. Subsistence in organized and permanent settlements in predynastic Egypt by the middle of the 6th millennium BC centered predominantly on cereal and animal agriculture: cattle, goats, pigs and sheep. Metal objects replaced prior ones of stone. Tanning of animal skins, pottery and weaving are commonplace in this era also.[37] There are indications of seasonal or only temporary occupation of the Al Fayyum in the 6th millennium BC, with food activities centering on fishing, hunting and food-gathering. Stone arrowheads, knives and scrapers are common.[38] Burial items include pottery, jewelry, farming and hunting equipment, and assorted foods including dried meat and fruit. Burial in desert environments appears to enhance Egyptian preservation rites, and dead are buried facing due west.[37] By 3400 BC, the Sahara was as dry as it is today, and it became a largely impenetrable barrier to humans, with only scattered settlements around the oases, but little trade or commerce through the desert. The one major exception was the Nile Valley. The Nile, however, was impassable at several cataracts, making trade and contact by boat difficult.

A Saharan village in Mali

Nubians

During the Neolithic, before the onset of desertification, around 9500 BC the central Sudan had been a rich environment supporting a large population ranging across what is now barren desert, like the Wadi el-Qa'ab. By the 5th millennium BC, the peoples who inhabited what is now called Nubia, were full participants in the "agricultural revolution," living a settled lifestyle with domesticated plants and animals. Saharan rock art of cattle and herdsmen found suggests the presence of a cattle cult like those found in Sudan and other pastoral societies in Africa today.[39] Megaliths found at Nabta Playa are overt examples of probably the world's first known Archaeoastronomy devices, predating Stonehenge by some 1000 years.[40] This complexity, as observed at Nabta Playa, and as expressed by different levels of authority within the society there, likely formed the basis for the structure of both the Neolithic society at Nabta and the Old Kingdom of Egypt.[41]

Phoenicians

The people of Phoenicia, who flourished between 1200-800 BC, created a confederation of kingdoms across the entire Sahara to Egypt. They generally settled along the Mediterranean coast, as well as the Sahara, among the people of Ancient Libya, who were the ancestors of people who speak Berber languages in North Africa and the Sahara today, including the Tuareg of the central Sahara.

The Phoenician alphabet seems to have been adopted by the ancient Libyans of north Africa, and Tifinagh is still used today by Berber-speaking Tuareg camel herders of the central Sahara.

Sometime between 633 BC and 530 BC, Hanno the Navigator either established or reinforced Phoenician colonies in Western Sahara, but all ancient remains have vanished with virtually no trace. (See History of Western Sahara.)

An Algerian man in urban dress The 12th Century traveller Benjamin of Tudela in the Sahara (Dumouza, 19th Century engraving)

Greeks

By 500 BC, a new influence arrived in the form of the Greeks. Greek traders spread along the eastern coast of the desert, establishing trading colonies along the Red Sea coast. The Carthaginians explored the Atlantic coast of the desert. But the turbulence of the waters and the lack of markets never led to an extensive presence further south than modern Morocco. Centralized states thus surrounded the desert on the north and east; it remained outside the control of these states. Raids from the nomadic Berber people of the desert were a constant concern of those living on the edge of the desert.

Urban civilization

An urban civilization, the Garamantes, arose around this time in the heart of the Sahara, in a valley that is now called the Wadi al-Ajal in Fazzan, Libya.[11] The Garamantes achieved this development by digging tunnels far into the mountains flanking the valley to tap fossil water and bring it to their fields. The Garamantes grew populous and strong, conquering their neighbors and capturing many slaves (which were put to work extending the tunnels). The ancient Greeks and the Romans knew of the Garamantes and regarded them as uncivilized nomads. However, they traded with the Garamantes, and a Roman bath has been found in the Garamantes capital of Garama. Archaeologists have found eight major towns and many other important settlements in the Garamantes territory. The Garamantes civilization eventually collapsed after they had depleted available water in the aquifers, and could no longer sustain the effort to extend the tunnels still further into the mountains.[42]

Trans-Saharan trade

Main article: Trans-Saharan trade

Following the Islamic conquest of North Africa in the mid-seventh to early eighth centuries, trade across the desert intensified. The kingdoms of the Sahel, especially the Ghana Empire and the later Mali Empire, grew rich and powerful exporting gold and salt to North Africa. The emirates along the Mediterranean Sea sent south manufactured goods and horses. From the Sahara itself, salt was exported. This process turned the scattered oasis communities into trading centres, and brought them under the control of the empires on the edge of the desert. A significant slave trade crossed the desert.

This trade persisted for several centuries until the development in Europe of the caravel allowed ships, first from Portugal but soon from all Western Europe, to sail around the desert and gather the resources from the source in Guinea. The Sahara was rapidly remarginalized.

European imperialism

At the beginning of the 19th century, most of the northern Sahara, including most of present-day Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Sahel and southern Sahara were home to several independent states.

European colonialism in the Sahara began in the 19th century. France conquered Algeria from the Ottomans in 1830, and French rule spread south from Algeria and eastwards from Senegal into the upper Niger to include present-day Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco (1912), Niger, and Tunisia (1881).

Egypt, under Muhammad Ali and his successors, conquered Nubia (1820–22), founded Khartoum (1823), and conquered Darfur (1874). Egypt, including the Sudan, became a British protectorate in 1882. Egypt and Britain lost control of the Sudan from 1882 to 1898 as a result of the Mahdist War. After its capture by British troops in 1898, the Sudan became a Anglo-Egyptian condominium.

Spain captured present-day Western Sahara after 1874. In 1912, Italy captured Libya from the Ottomans.

To promote the Roman Catholic religion in the desert, the Pope in 1868 appointed a delegate Apostolic of the Sahara and the Sudan; later in the 19th century his jurisdiction was reorganized into the Vicariate Apostolic of Sahara.

Modern times

A natural rock arch in south western Libya

Egypt became independent of Britain in 1936, although the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 allowed Britain to keep troops in Egypt and maintained the British-Egyptian condominium in the Sudan. British military forces were withdrawn in 1954.

Most of the Saharan states achieved independence after World War II: Libya in 1951, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia in 1956, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger in 1960, and Algeria in 1962. Spain withdrew from Western Sahara in 1975, and it was partitioned between Mauritania and Morocco. Mauritania withdrew in 1979, but Morocco continues to hold the territory.

The modern era has seen a number of mines and communities develop to exploit the desert's natural resources. These include large deposits of oil and natural gas in Algeria and Libya and large deposits of phosphates in Morocco and Western Sahara.

A number of Trans-African highways have been proposed across the Sahara, including the Cairo-Dakar Highway along the Atlantic coast, the Trans-Sahara Highway from Algiers on the Mediterranean to Kano in Nigeria, the Tripoli-Cape Town Highway from Tripoli in Libya to Ndjamena in Chad, and the Cairo-Cape Town Highway which follows the Nile. Each of these highways is partially complete, with significant gaps and unpaved sections.

Peoples and languages

The Sahara is home to a number of people and languages. Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the Sahara, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Berber people are found from western Egypt to Morocco, including the Tuareg pastoralists of the central Sahara. The Beja live in the Red Sea Hills of southeastern Egypt and eastern Sudan. The Arabic, Berber, and Beja languages are part of the Afro-Asiatic language family.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Arthur N. Strahler and Alan H. Strahler. (1987) Modern Physical Geography–Third Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Page 347
  2. ^ "Sahara." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  3. ^ "English-Arabic online dictionary". Online.ectaco.co.uk. 2006-12-28. http://online.ectaco.co.uk/main.jsp?do=e-services-dictionaries-word_translate1&status=translate&lang1=23&lang2=ar&source_id=2119140. Retrieved 2010-06-12.
  4. ^ Discover Magazine, 2006-Oct.
  5. ^ National Geographic News, 2006-06-17.
  6. ^ "Sahara desert" WWF Scientific Report [1]. Retrieved December 30, 2007.
  7. ^ Wickens, Gerald E. (1998) Ecophysiology of Economic Plants in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands. Springer, Berlin. ISBN 978-3-540-52171-6
  8. ^ a b Grove, A.T., nicole (1958,2007). "The Ancient Erg of Hausaland, and Similar Formations on the South Side of the Sahara". The Geographical Journal 124 (4): 528–533. doi:10.2307/1790942. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0016-7398(195812)124%3A4%3C528%3ATAEOHA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  9. ^ a b Bisson, J. (2003). Mythes et réalités d'un désert convoité: le Sahara. L'Harmattan. (French)
  10. ^ a b Walton, K. (2007). The Arid Zones. Aldine.
  11. ^ a b c Kevin White and David J. Mattingly (2006). Ancient Lakes of the Sahara. 94. American Scientist. pp. 58–65
  12. ^ Christopher Ehret. The Civilizations of Africa. University Press of Virginia, 2002.
  13. ^ Fezzan Project — Palaeoclimate and environment. Retrieved March 15, 2006.
  14. ^ "Geophysical Research Letters" Simulation of an abrupt change in Saharan vegetation in the mid-Holocene - July 15th, 1999
  15. ^ Sahara's Abrupt Desertification Started by Changes in Earth's Orbit, Accelerated by Atmospheric and Vegetation Feedbacks.
  16. ^ Kröpelin, Stefan; et al. (2008). "Climate-Driven Ecosystem Succession in the Sahara: The Past 6000 Years". Science 320 (5877): 765–768. doi:10.1126/science.1154913. PMID 18467583.
  17. ^ Oxfam Cool Planet - the Sahara - access February 10, 2008
  18. ^ Tiempo Climate Newswatch: Climate Change and the Sahara
  19. ^ "Expansion and contraction of the Sahara Desert between 1980 and 1990| Science 253: 299-301". Ciesin.columbia.edu. 1991-07-19. http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/005-319/005-319.html. Retrieved 2010-06-12.
  20. ^ "Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change?". News.nationalgeographic.com. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html. Retrieved 2010-06-12.
  21. ^ "Think It's Cold Here? It Snowed On Sahara!". New York Times (New York City, NY: The New York Times Company): pp. D4. 19 February 1979. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4081EFB3A5D12728DDDA00994DA405B898BF1D3. Retrieved 17 June 2010.
  22. ^ "Snow Falls In The Sahara". The Spokesman-Review: Eastern Washington Edition (Spokane, WA: Cowles Publishing Company): pp. 1. 19 February 1979. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=UsoRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9O0DAAAAIBAJ&dq=snow%20sahara&pg=2960%2C2123284.
  23. ^ Messerli, B. (1973). "Problems of Vertical and Horizontal Arrangement in the High Mountains of the Extreme Arid Zone". Arctic and Alpine Research (Boulder, CO: University of Colorado) 5 (3): 139–147. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1550163. Retrieved 17 June 2010.
  24. ^ Kendrew, Wilfrid George (1922). The Climates of the Continents. Oxford: The Clarendon press. pp. 27. ISBN 9781406781724. http://books.google.com/?id=pyDpdkVOInMC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=ahaggar+snowcapped&q.
  25. ^ "Atlantic coastal desert" WWF Scientific Report [2]. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  26. ^ "North Saharan steppe and woodlands" WWF Scientific Report [3]. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  27. ^ "Sahara desert" WWF Scientific Report [4]. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  28. ^ "South Saharan steppe and woodlands" WWF Scientific Report [5]. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  29. ^ "West Saharan montane xeric woodlands" WWF Scientific Report [6]. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  30. ^ "Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands" WWF Scientific Report [7]. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  31. ^ "Saharan halophytics" WWF Scientific Report [8]. Retrieved December 29, 2007.
  32. ^ Pianka, E.R.; King, D.R. and King, R.A. 2004. Varanoid Lizards of the World. Indiana University Press.
  33. ^ McNutt et al. (2008). Lycaon pictus. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 06 May 2008.
  34. ^ Borrell, Brendan (2009-08-19). "Endangered in South Africa: Those Doggone Conservationists". Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2225607/entry/2225663/.
  35. ^ "" Rare cheetah captured on camera"". BBC News. 2009-02-24. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7905986.stm. Retrieved 2010-06-12.
  36. ^ http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/221/0/full The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Acinonyx jubatus ssp. hecki
  37. ^ a b Predynastic] (5,500–3,100 BC), Tour Egypt].
  38. ^ Fayum, Qarunian (Fayum B, about 6000–5000 BC?), Digital Egypt.
  39. ^ "History of Nubia". Anth.ucsb.edu. http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/stsmith/research/nubia_history.html. Retrieved 2010-06-12.
  40. ^ PlanetQuest: The History of Astronomy - Retrieved on 2007-08-29
  41. ^ Late Neolithic megalithic structures at Nabta Playa - by Fred Wendorf (1998)
  42. ^ Keys, David. 2004. Kingdom of the Sands. Archaeology. Volume 57 Number 2, March/April 2004. Abstract. Retrieved March 13, 2006.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sahara
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North America

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Oceania

Kaʻū Desert · Rangipo Desert
See also List of deserts and List of deserts by area

Categories: Sahara | Deserts | Palearctic | Deserts and xeric shrublands | Arabic words and phrases | Geography of the Arab League | Physiographic provinces | Geography of Africa

 

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