Find Where is the Sahara Desert Located

The Sahara Desert is located on the Northern portion of the continent of Africa. More specifically, it is on the equator portion of the land mass. It is one of the hottest places on the planet known as earth and has a great amount of area it covers. Some of the countries it either covers fully or partially include Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. At 3.5 million square miles it is also one of the largest deserts in the world and it is continuing to grow with the phenomenon known as desertification. Essentially, it is the transformation of aridable, fertile land full of soil into less nutrient filled, sand. It is a process that is still hard to grasp.

It's because of it's location at the equator that many of the Sahara Desert's characteristics exist. The heat from being closer to the sun causes much of the desertification. In addition, this is also the reason that many people don't live in the area. The heat plus the lack of aridable land makes it difficult to live in such conditions. For over three million years the desert has been forming into one of the most recognizable names of geographic locations. It carries a lot of history and is mentioned in many historical texts from around the world.

Many water sources in the region are seasonal or intermediate and this also contributes to a lack of livable land. Areas around the Nile, however, do have quiet the living space as it can be used as a resource to help expand conditions. Areas near the Mediterranean Sea are also highly populated as well as anything along the Atlantic Ocean. Overall, the area is very sparsely lived in and this is again because of its geographical location near the equator and at the top of the African continent.