Sahara

Sahara (As-Sahara صحراء, listen, in French: desert or steppe) is a desert ecoregion located in the northern part of the African continent and is the western part of a vast dry diagonal extending to Mongolia, extends beyond the Red Sea and is then called Sahara-Arabian desert, stretched over 7500 km and covering 12 million kilometers carrés1. Considered the largest hot desert in the world (see list of major deserts by area), it divides the continent from north to south. It covers vast expanses of territory and extends over ten countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania and territory disputed Western Sahara.

Sahara (Arabic) is the name given to a desert region of Africa called Tiniri (or Ténéré) by natives who speak Berber language. It is the largest and the only true desert in the geographical sense because it has hyperarid regions (less than 50 mm annual rainfall but with extreme interannual irregularity), dry (less than 150 mm annual rainfall and vegetation concentrated in wadis), semi-arid and dry sub-humid. The diagonal dry which it belongs includes Sahara, Arabia, the Syrian desert (Syria, Jordan and Iraq), Dasht-e Kavir (Iran), Dasht-e Lut (Iran), Thar (India) and continues with the temperate latitude deserts of Central Asia (the Karakum, the Kyzyl Kum) and Chinese (the Taklamakan and Gobi).

This dryness can be explained by the loss of two major sources of precipitation: the polar front and the equatorial currents of Western Canada.2 and it leads to droughts particularly important in intensity and duration.