Question

In which continent is the Sahara desert located?

Answer 1

Hint: This continent is located between the latitudes 37° North and 35° South and also between the longitudes 50° East and 20° West. It is the one and only continent that is traversed by the equator, the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. The Greenwich Meridian passes through the western part of this continent.

Complete answer:
The Sahara desert is the world’s largest hot desert as well as the third largest desert behind Antarctica and the Arctic located in North Africa, it covers large sections of the continent - covering approximately 200,000 square kilometers.
It has an area of approximately 8.54 million sq. km. Surprisingly, this desert in total touches eleven countries – Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara. In the Sahara desert, there are present gravel plains as well as an elevated plateaus along with bare rocky surface. These rocky surfaces may be more than 2500m high at a few places.
The climate here is extreme, scorching hot and parched dry. It has a short rainy season. The sky is cloudless as well as clear. The temperatures during the day time may go as high as 50°C, heating up the sand and the bare rocks, which in turn, radiates out heat that turns everything around hot. The nights may be freezing cold with temperatures nearing about zero degrees.
In this desert vegetation consists of cactus, date palms and acacia. Somehow in some places, there are oasis – green islands along with date palms surrounding them. Camels, hyenas, jackals, foxes, scorpions, many types of snakes and lizards are the prominent animal species living in the Sahara desert.
The Sahara desert is inhabited by several groups of people, who pursue various activities. Out of them are the Bedouins and Tuaregs who are referred as the nomadic tribes rearing livestock such as goats, sheep, camels and horses.

Note:
The oasis present in the Sahara and the Nile Valley in Egypt supports the settled population. As the water is available, people grow date palms. Crops like rice, wheat, barley and beans are also grown. The cultural landscape of the Sahara is also undergoing several changes. Gleaming glass cased office buildings tower over mosques and superhighways crisscross the ancient camel paths. Trucks have been replaced by camels in the salt trade. Tuaregs are also seen as guides to foreign tourists. A large number of nomadic herdsmen are taking to city life finding jobs in oil as well as gas operations.