Sahara
Nature
The largest hot desert in the world, almost as big as China.
The Sahara covers about 9.2 million square kilometres of North Africa, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. It is the largest hot desert in the world.
Only about a quarter of it is sand dunes. The rest is bare rock, gravel and mountains. By day it can be hotter than 45 degrees, and at night it can cool down to freezing.
- of desert
- 9.2 million km²
- is sand dunes
- 25%
- the highest dunes
- 180 m
- 1
Thousands of years ago the Sahara was green. Rock paintings there show giraffes, cattle and people swimming.
- 2
Now and then it snows in the Sahara, on the edge of the Atlas mountains.
- 3
The largest desert of all is Antarctica. A desert is about how dry a place is, not how hot.
Question 1 of 2
What is most of the Sahara made of?
- Great Mosque of DjennéThe largest building in the world made of mud, replastered by the whole town every year.
- AlhambraA palace of the Moorish kings on a hill in Spain.
- Mount EtnaThe most active volcano in Europe.
- Sagrada FamíliaA church in Barcelona that has been under construction since 1882.
It is in Algeria.
Read about Algeria