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Deserts are very dry places. Some of them get less than 10 inches of rain in a whole year. Some years there might be no rain at all. It can be very hot during the day and very cold at night. Because there is little water, very few plants grow, so there is no shade. Deserts get cold at night because there are no plants to hold the heat on the ground and because dry air cools quickly. It is very hard for people and animals to live in the desert. The two largest deserts in Africa are the Sahara in northern Africa and the Kalahari in southern Africa. The Sahara Desert covers 3,500,000 miles. It is the largest desert in the world. The name Sahara comes from the Arabic word for desert. The Sahara is covered by mountains, rocky areas, gravel plains, salt flats and huge areas of dunes. There are dunes in the picture on the left. Areas in the central Sahara sometimes get no rain for years at a time. Less than 2 million people live in the Sahara desert. Most of the people are Arabic nomads. Nomads are people that have no permanent home. They constantly travel in search for food and water for themselves and their animals. The Sahara has been crossed by Arab caravans since the 10th century. Click here to learn more about the Sahara Desert.   ©Africa Focus.2000 The Kalahari Desert in southern Africa is much smaller. It covers 225,000 miles. The Kalahari is covered by sand dunes and gravel plains like other deserts. However, some scientists do not consider the Kalahari a true desert because some parts of the Kalahari receive more than 10 inches of rain in a year. Animals that live in the region include brown hyenas, lions, meerkats, several species of antelope, and many types of birds and reptiles. Vegetation in the Kalahari consists of dry grassland and scrubby acacias. Grasses thrive in the Kalahari during the summer rainy season. Click here to learn more about the Kalahari Desert. There are deserts in these countries in Africa: Algeria Angola Botswana Chad Egypt Libya Mauritania Morocco Namibia Niger Sudan   Click here to learn about other deserts of the world, including the Mojave desert in the United States. Home | Africa Trip | Desert | Savanna | Rainforest | Links/Credits | Journal