The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world. It is more than 3.5 million square miles in area.
The desert spans ten different countries: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan, and Tunisia.
“Sahara” comes from an Arabic word for ‘desert,’ sahra.
One of the rarest animals in the desert is the Saharan cheetah. There are fewer than 250 adults left in the wild.
The rolling sand dunes can get as tall as 180 meters (almost 600 feet).
The highest air temperature ever recorded was on September 13, 1922. It was 136˚ F in El Azizia, in the northern Sahara.
The Sahara has some of the oldest rock art in the world. Some is more than 12,000 years old.
Fewer than 2.5 million people…