Namib, Sahara and Kalahari are the most popular deserts located in Africa. In these lands we will make a trip today.
Deserts of south africa
Namib, Sahara and Kalahari are 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 expanses. 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
From the first sound it becomes clear that its designation can be interpreted as something empty, deserted. Indeed, it is. But to be absolutely accurate and to characterize this phenomenon from a scientific point of view, the desert is a territory with a predominant flat surface and a complete (or partial) absence of fauna and flora.
Mysterious Africa
But the answer to the next question from time to time interests many geography lovers and just curious people. How many sand deserts 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 Kalahari is a type of rocky clay desert.
Deserts of Africa: Sahara, Namib, Kalahari
Most likely, there will be no people in the world who at least once have not heard of the existence of these truly amazing places. And even more so, few will argue with the assertion 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.
Sahara
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 full of hot sands. But it was not always so. Once upon a time, from about 10 to 2 thousand years ago, abundant water flowed in its place. Yes, it's hard to believe. But this is true. In those days, the now arid desert was a steppe - the savannah, in which ordinary life proceeded. Confirmation of this and other facts is the opinion of scientists, one of which is Leo Frobenius. In 1933, he discovered rock paintings in Sahara with images of various animals: lions, bulls, ostriches, elephants, goats, antelopes, rhinos and hippos.
Currently, the desert covers almost the entire northern part of Africa and amounts to more than nine million square meters. The Sahara Desert in Africa extends widely . Animals, plants in it, although preserved, but gradually continue their extinction.
In 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 heights of 500 meters above sea level.
The northeastern part of the Sahara is strewn with hollows (Kattara, El-Fuym and others).
Its central part consists of mountain ranges. The most famous among them are Tibesti and Akhaggar.
Sugar is a source of oil, iron ore, phosphate rock and natural gas.
Its climate, no doubt, refers to the tropical desert, because it is very rare in the desert to rain more than 50 millimeters per month, 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 deserts in the world, then Namib is the oldest of the whole family. Her age ranges in the region of 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 more than one millimeter of precipitation rarely falls in the desert during the year, it remains filled with vital energy every day. Numerous representatives of the fauna confirm this. 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. An amazing desert rose grows in Namibia, both in appearance and in name, ancient African plants located in Africa reach an age mark of up to two millennia.
Of course, one cannot ignore the most famous landmark of Namibia, its Nauklyuvt National Park. On its territory there are countless landscape memorials.
The local climate is very dry, and daily temperature jumps can reach 40 degrees.
Kalahari
It is she who 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 on the territory is dry and tropical with maximum rainfall in summer and fairly mild winters.
Kalahari is a fairly remote point from the central part of the country, but at the same time an equally popular destination for an inexhaustible tourist flow. After all, what emotions a wandering people experiences in trying to master it are worth the kilometers traveled.
It’s worth visiting the desert, although for the sake of the extraordinary beauty of the sunset, the scarlet color of which smoothly turns into a reddish shade of grape berries against the background of snow-white sand.
Desert animals are as magnificent as she herself. Lions and cheetahs, antelopes and hyenas - they can be seen in the vast Kalahari.
Regardless of the circumstances that, it would seem, determine the complete absence of the plant world in the desert, it is comparatively rich. The most common species include various herbs, shrubs and acacias.
Desert africa
This is one of the greatest places on earth, and you should visit it without the slightest share of doubt at any opportunity that not everyone gets.
Do not take these places as something terrible. Remember that most of these associations have arisen as a result of watching science fiction and adventure films, and suddenly find that there is really nothing to be afraid of.
And a few words
Africa: hot deserts, endless savannahs ... What could be more beautiful for a freshly baked or experienced tourist? Perhaps nothing. And it is not in vain that they say that to visit this country and not to see at least one desert is the same as not to look at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In other words, absolutely pointless!