Deserts

The land of Egypt is occupied by three deserts consuming 95 percent of Egyptian soil; the Sinai Desert, the Arabian Desert, and the Libyan Desert. Each one of them having its unique landscape, weather and features, which makes Egypt truly the land of deserts. Throughout our years of desert traveling, we have gathered many experiences and knowledge of the Egyptian deserts and the Western Desert in particular.

The Western Desert covers about 700,000 square kilometers and accounts for about two-thirds of Egypt’s land area. This immense desert to the west of the It spans the area from the Mediterranean Sea south to the Sudanese border. The desert’s Jilf al Kabir Plateau has an altitude of about 1,000 meters, an exception to the uninterrupted territory of basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded sediments forming a massive plain or low plateau. The Great Sand Sea lies within the desert’s plain and extends from the Siwa Oasis to Jilf al Kabir. Escarpments (ridges) and deep depressions (basins) exist in several parts of the Western Desert, and no rivers or streams drain into or out of the area. The Siwah Oasis, close to the Libyan border and west of Qattara, is isolated from the rest of Egypt but has sustained life since ancient times. The Siwa’s cliff-hung Temple of Amun was renowned for its oracles for more than 1,000 years. Herodotus and Alexander the Great were among the many illustrious people who visited the temple in the pre-Christian era. The other major oases form a topographic chain of basins extending from the Faiyum Oasis which lies sixty kilometers southwest of Cairo, south to the Bahariya, Farafirah, and Dakhilah oases before reaching the country’s largest oasis, Kharijah. A brackish lake, Birket Qarun, at the northern reaches of Al Fayyum Oasis, drained into the Nile in ancient times. For centuries sweetwater artesian wells in the Fayyum Oasis have permitted extensive cultivation in an irrigated area that extends over 1,800 square kilometers (694 square miles).