Where in Africa is the Desert?
African countries with deserts totals nineteen and there are nine hot dry deserts, semi-arid deserts, and coastal deserts in Africa named the Chalbi, Danakil, Guban, Sahara, Kalahari. Karoo, Namib, Nyiri deserts.
Listing, description and location of nine African deserts and where does desertification occur in Africa with neighboring African countries.
Africa has the largest hottest dry desert in the world, the Sahara Desert. The three main types of deserts in Africa include hot and dry deserts, semi-arid deserts, and coastal deserts.
Most of the northern third of Africa is covered by the dry barren desert, the Sahara while much of the southern part of the African continent are dry deserts, coastal deserts and semi-deserts. There are nine deserts in Africa, they are the Chalbi Desert, Danakil Desert, Guban Desert, Kalahari Desert, Karoo Desert, Namib Desert, Nyiri Desert, and the Sahara Desert.
African Desert Description.
The Chalbi Desert is located entirely in northern Kenya.
Danakil Desert is a desert in northeast Ethiopia, southern Eritrea, and northwestern Djibouti.
The Guban is a coastal desert in northwestern Somalia also known as the Republic of Somaliland, a self-declared independent state without international recognition.
Semi-desert, the Kalahari Desert covers large parts of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa covering 900,000 square kilometres or 350,000 square miles and is full of cyanobacteria also called blue-green algae which can be harmful to pets and humans.
The Karoo or The Succulent Karoo semi-desert wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth, it is a vast semi-desert region of more than 155,000 square miles, 98 million acres or 400,000 square kilometres stretching over the provinces of the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape South Africa.
Located entirely in southern Kenya the Nyiri Desert where Baobab trees are found in the desert, some as old as two thousand years along with many animals such as the elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, lions, leopard, lesser kudu, and impala.
The Namib is a coastal desert creating voluminous amounts of fog when it meets the Atlantic ocean in southern Africa. It is one of the oldest and largest deserts covering portions of Namibia, South Africa and Angola.
Finally, the Sahara desert covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia.
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| Sahara desert Egypt |
Out of 54 African countries, 19 have deserts within their borders and they are Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, and Tunisia and the remaining 35 countries of Africa are susceptible to some type of desertification.
| African Country | Location of African Deserts |
|---|---|
| Algeria | Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, the Sahara Desert, between Morocco and Tunisia. |
| Angola | Southern Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between Namibia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, portions include the Namib coastal desert. |
| Benin | Western Africa, bordering the Bight of Benin, between Nigeria and Togo. |
| Botswana | Southern Africa, north of South Africa, large portions include the Kalahari Desert. |
| Burkina Faso | Western Africa, north of Ghana. |
| Burundi | Central Africa, east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, west of Tanzania. |
| Cabo Verde | Western Africa, group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, west of Senegal. |
| Cameroon | Central Africa, bordering the Bight of Biafra, between Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. |
| Central African Republic | Central Africa, north of Democratic Republic of the Congo. |
| Chad | Central Africa, south of Libya, portions include the Sahara Desert. |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | Central Africa, northeast of Angola. |
| Republic of the Congo | Central Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between Angola and Gabon. |
| Cote d'Ivoire | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Ghana and Liberia. |
| Djibouti | Eastern Africa, bordering the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, between Eritrea and Somalia, portions include the Danakil Desert. |
| Egypt | Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Libya and the Gaza Strip, and the Red Sea north of Sudan, and includes the Asian Sinai Peninsula, portions include the Sahara Desert.. |
| Equatorial Guinea | Central Africa, bordering the Bight of Biafra, between Cameroon and Gabon. |
| Eritrea | Eastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea, between Djibouti and Sudan, portions include the Danakil Desert. |
| Eswatini | Southern Africa, between Mozambique and South Africa. |
| Ethiopia | Eastern Africa, west of Somalia, portions include the Danakil Desert. |
| Gabon | Central Africa, bordering the Atlantic Ocean at the Equator, between Republic of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea. |
| The Gambia | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and Senegal. |
| Ghana | Western Africa, bordering the Gulf of Guinea, between Cote d'Ivoire and Togo. |
| Guinea | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. |
| Guinea-Bissau | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Guinea and Senegal. |
| Kenya | Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Somalia and Tanzania, the Chalbi Desert is located entirly in north Kenya along with the Nyiri Desert. |
| Lesotho | Southern Africa, an enclave of South Africa. |
| Liberia | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Cote d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. |
| Libya | Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, portions include the Sahara Desert.. |
| Madagascar | Southern Africa, island in the Indian Ocean, east of Mozambique. |
| Malawi | Southern Africa, east of Zambia, west and north of Mozambique. |
| Mali | interior Western Africa, southwest of Algeria, north of Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, and Burkina Faso, west of Niger, portions include the Sahara Desert.. |
| Mauritania | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Senegal and Western Sahara, portions include the Sahara Desert. |
| Mauritius | Southern Africa, island in the Indian Ocean, about 800 km (500 mi) east of Madagascar. |
| Morocco | Northern Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, between Algeria and Western Sahara. |
| Mozambique | Southeastern Africa, bordering the Mozambique Channel, between South Africa and Tanzania. |
| Namibia | Southern Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between Angola and South Africa, portions include the Kalahari Desert and the Namib coastal desert. |
| Niger | Western Africa, southeast of Algeria, portions include the Sahara Desert.. |
| Nigeria | Western Africa, bordering the Gulf of Guinea, between Benin and Cameroon. |
| Rwanda | Central Africa, east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, north of Burundi. |
| Sao Tome and Principe | Central Africa, islands in the Gulf of Guinea, just north of the Equator, west of Gabon. |
| Senegal | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania. |
| Seychelles | archipelago in the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar. |
| Sierra Leone | Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Guinea and Liberia. |
| Somalia | Eastern Africa, bordering the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, east of Ethiopia, the Guban coastal desert in northwestern Somalia also known as the Republic of Somaliland. |
| South Africa | Southern Africa, at the southern tip of the continent of Africa, portions include the Kalahari Desert, Karoo Desert and the Namib coastal desert. |
| South Sudan | East-Central Africa; south of Sudan, north of Uganda and Kenya, west of Ethiopia. |
| Sudan | North-eastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea, between Egypt and Eritrea, portions include the Sahara Desert.. |
| Tanzania | Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Kenya and Mozambique. |
| Togo | Western Africa, bordering the Bight of Benin, between Benin and Ghana. |
| Tunisia | Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Algeria and Libya, portions include the Sahara Desert.. |
| Uganda | East-Central Africa, west of Kenya, east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. |
| Zambia | Southern Africa, east of Angola, south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. |
| Zimbabwe | Southern Africa, between South Africa and Zambia. |
When land degradation occurs in the drylands, it is referred to as desertification. Drylands take up 41.3% of the land surface. This is a significant proportion of our land to disregard as wastelands, considering that they are habitable and part of the remaining land includes some mountains. Drylands refer to arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. Deserts are hyper-arid and one third of the lands on earth are covered with deserts.
Desertification refers to the land degradation in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. Desertification hinders regularly the developmental efforts including in the field of agriculture, rural and urban development. The livelihoods of more than 1 billion people in some 100 countries are threatened by desertification.
When land degradation happens in the world's drylands, it often creates desert-like conditions. Globally, 24% of the land is degrading. About 1.5 billion people directly depend on these degrading areas. Nearly 20% of the degrading land is cropland, and 23% rangeland or open country used for grazing or hunting animals.
