Concept

Sahara

Overview

The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning North Africa. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.

The name "Sahara" is derived from Arabic: صَحَارَى, romanized: ṣaḥārā /sˤaħaːraː/, a broken plural form of ṣaḥrā' (صَحْرَاء /sˤaħraːʔ/), meaning "desert".

The desert covers much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan.

It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan region of sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert.

For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000-year cycle caused by the precession of Earth's axis (about 26,000 years) as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African monsoon.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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The globe is divided into five parts, termed zones, and all that portion is subject to severe cold and perpetual frost, which is under the two extremities, about each of the poles, the nearer of which is called the north, and the opposite the south, pole. The middle of the earth, over which is the orbit of the sun, is parched and burned by the flame, and is consumed by being so near the heat. There are only two of…
the Elder Pliny, The Boys' and Girls' Pliny
States what Sahara is.
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Beyond this region the country is a desert for a great distance; and beyond the desert Androphagi dwell, who are a distinct people, not in any respect Scythian. Beyond this is really desert, and no nation of men is found there, as far as we know.
Herodotus, The Boys' and Girls' Herodotus
States what Sahara is.
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Opposed to this quadrant lies that of the south-east, towards Eastern Æthiopia; it is called the southern part of Asia Magna. Another quadrant of the entire earth is in the north-east, about Scythia, and is called the northern part of Asia Magna. To this is opposed the quadrant of the south-west, which lies about Western Æthiopia, and is known by the general name of Libya.
Ptolemy, Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos
States what Sahara is.
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Philosophers who discussed Sahara

Frantz Fanon

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Language.

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