The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the north-eastern
Sahara Desert
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
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, from eastern Libya to the
Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval maps, its use predates today's
Sahara, and parts of the Libyan Desert include the Sahara's most arid and least populated regions; this is chiefly what sets the Libyan Desert apart from the greater Sahara. The consequent absence of grazing, and near absence of waterholes or wells needed to sustain camel caravans, prevented
Trans-Saharan trade
Trans-Saharan trade requires travel across the Sahara between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. While existing from prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century.
The Sahara once had a very d ...
between
Kharga (the Darb al Arbein) close to the Nile, and
Murzuk
Murzuk, Murzuq, Murzug or Merzug ( ar, مرزق) is an oasis town and the capital of the Murzuq District in the Fezzan region of southwest Libya.Robinson, Harry (1960) "Murzuq" ''The Mediterranean Lands'' University Tutorial Press, London, p. 414 ...
in the Libyan
Fezzan
Fezzan ( , ; ber, ⴼⵣⵣⴰⵏ, Fezzan; ar, فزان, Fizzān; la, Phazania) is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ...
. This obscurity saw the region overlooked by early European explorers, and it was not until the early 20th century and the advent of the motor car before the Libyan Desert started to be fully explored.
Nomenclature
The term 'Libyan Desert' began to appear widely on European maps in the last decades of the 19th century, typically identified as straddling the borders of present-day Egypt and Libya. This name derived from a territory known as
Ancient Libya. (It was not until 1934 that former
Ottoman Tripolitania became known as
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
.) In his book ''
Libyan Sands'',
Ralph Bagnold went as far as to suggest that the Libyan Desert was a separate geographical entity from the Sahara, cut off by the mountains and plateaux of the
Ennedi
The Ennedi Plateau is located in the northeast of Chad, in the regions of Ennedi-Ouest and Ennedi-Est. It is considered a part of the group of mountains known as the Ennedi Massif found in Chad, which is one of the nine countries that make up t ...
and
Tibesti in northern Chad, and the
Akakus and
Tassili n'Ajjer along the Algerian border in the west. Since that time the meaning has come to revert to the definition given above.
Geography
The Libyan Desert covers an area of approximately , and extends approximately 1,100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle slanting to the south-east. Like most of the Sahara, this desert is primarily
sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...
and
hamada
A hamada ( ar, حمادة, ) is a type of desert landscape consisting of high, largely barren, hard rocky plateaus, where most of the sand has been removed by deflation. The majority of the Sahara is in fact hamada. Other examples are Negev dese ...
or stony plain.
Sand plains,
dunes, ridges, and some
depressions (basins) typify the
endorheic region, with no rivers draining into or out of the desert. The
Gilf Kebir plateau reaches an altitude of just over , and along with the nearby massif of
Jebel Uweinat is an exception to the uninterrupted territory of
basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded sediments, forming a massive sand plain, low plateaus, and dunes.
[The Libyan Sahara]
at temehu.com
The desert features a striking diversity of landscapes including mountains, oases, and sand seas.
To the south lie the main mountain ranges, from the
Jebel Uweinat (), on the Libya-Egypt-Sudan border, the
Tibesti to the south, on the border with Chad, and the
Acacus to the southwest.
The main oases are
Jaghbub and
Jalo in east, in Cyrenaica,
Kufra
Kufra () is a basinBertarelli (1929), p. 514. and oasis group in the Kufra District of southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. At the end of nineteenth century Kufra became the centre and holy place of the Senussi order. It also played a minor role in ...
in the southeast, and
Murzuk
Murzuk, Murzuq, Murzug or Merzug ( ar, مرزق) is an oasis town and the capital of the Murzuq District in the Fezzan region of southwest Libya.Robinson, Harry (1960) "Murzuq" ''The Mediterranean Lands'' University Tutorial Press, London, p. 414 ...
in the south, in Fezzan. The sand seas lie in a ring around the border of Libya. To the east lies the
Calanshio Sand Sea, the western lobe of the
Great Sand Sea
The Great Sand Sea is an approximately sand desert (erg) in the Sahara between western Egypt and eastern Libya in North Africa. Some 74% of the area is covered by sand dunes.
Geography
The Great Sand Sea stretches about from north to south an ...
straddling the Libya-Egypt border, and stretches 800 kilometres from Jaghbub and Jalo in the north to Kufra in the south. To the south-east lies the
Rebiana Sand Sea, near the border with Sudan. To the south west is the
Idehan Murzuq
The Murzuq Desert, Idehan Murzuq, Idhan Murzuq, (also Murzaq, Murzuk, Marzuq and Murzak), is an erg in southwestern Libya with a surface of approximately 58,000 km2. It is named after the town of Murzuk in the Fezzan. Like the Idehan Ubari furthe ...
, bordering Chad, and to west lies the
Idehan Ubari
The Ubari Desert, Idehan Ubari, Idehan Awbari (''Idehan'' means ''fine sand'' in Tamasheq) or Ubari Erg is an erg in the hyper-arid Fezzan region of southwestern Libya with a surface of approximately 58,000 km². The area of the Ubari desert has b ...
, bordering Algeria. The sand seas contain dunes up to 512 meters in height, and cover approximately one quarter of the total desert region.
Other features are the
Aswad al Haruj (the "Black Desert"), a large circular region of black volcanic shield in the centre of the country, and the
Hamada al Hamra (the "Red Desert") a rocky plateau to the west, on the Tunisian border, coloured by iron oxide deposits. To the southeast, between Kufra and the Libya-Egypt-Sudan border, lies the
Jebel Arkenu, with the associated
Arkenu structures, thought to be caused by meteorite strikes.
[
North of the Gilf Kebir plateau, among the shallow peripheral dunes of the southern ]Great Sand Sea
The Great Sand Sea is an approximately sand desert (erg) in the Sahara between western Egypt and eastern Libya in North Africa. Some 74% of the area is covered by sand dunes.
Geography
The Great Sand Sea stretches about from north to south an ...
, is a field of Libyan desert glass
Libyan Desert glass or Great Sand Sea glass is an impactite, made mostly of lechatelierite, found in areas in the eastern Sahara, in the deserts of eastern Libya and western Egypt. Fragments of desert glass can be found over areas of tens of s ...
. This is thought to be associated with a meteorite impact, marked by the Kebira crater, on the Libya-Egypt border. A specimen of the desert glass was used in a piece of Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
's ancient jewellery.
The Libyan Desert is barely populated apart from the modern settlements at oases of the lower Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή ��παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...
region in southeastern Libya. The indigenous population are Bisharin tribe, Mahas
The Mahas are a sub-group of the Nubian people located in Sudan along the banks of the Nile. They are further split into the Mahas of the North and Mahas of the Center. Some Mahas villages are intermixed with remnants of the largely extinct Qamhat ...
, and Berber. Where the desert extends into Egypt and no longer in Libya, it is generally known as the " Western Desert". The term "Western Desert" contrasts with the Eastern Desert
The Eastern Desert (Archaically known as Arabia or the Arabian Desert) is the part of the Sahara desert that is located east of the Nile river. It spans of North-Eastern Africa and is bordered by the Nile river to the west and the Red Sea an ...
to the east of the Nile River, which lies between the Nile and the Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
.
Climate
The Libyan desert is said to be one of the least hospitable regions on Earth. Its climate is surprisingly variable, being hot in summer, with average daytime temperatures of and above, though this drops rapidly at night. In winter, days are cool, with temperatures averaging , but at night this can drop below freezing, with temperatures of recorded. At these times the formation of hoar frost
Frost is a thin layer of ice on a solid surface, which forms from water vapor in an above-freezing atmosphere coming in contact with a solid surface whose temperature is below freezing, and resulting in a phase change from water vapor (a ga ...
is not uncommon, and are known as "White Nights". Contrariwise, at 'Aziziya a daytime temperature of was seen in 1922, the highest naturally occurring temperature on record.
In the north, along the Mediterranean shore, cool onshore winds blow inland, while further south, hot, dry winds, known as '' Ghibli'', blow from the interior, creating blinding sand-storms. Periodic droughts
A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
are common in the desert, often lasting several years.
History
Historical desert
Historically, "Libya" referred to an ill-defined area to the west of Ancient Egypt, whose boundary traditionally was the lake of Mareotis
Lake Mariout ( ar, بحيرة مريوط ', , also spelled Maryut or Mariut), is a brackish lake in northern Egypt near the city of Alexandria. The lake area covered and had a navigable canal at the beginning of the 20th century, but at the begin ...
, outside Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
. The ancient Greeks, such as Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
, regarded the whole of the North African littoral, to Cape Spartel in Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...
, as “Libya”. Later, the Romans organized the region the provinces of Libya Inferior and Libya Superior, which covered western Egypt and Cyrenaica. Thus the "Libyan Desert" was the desert to the south of Ancient Libya. With the organization of the Italian colony of Libya in the 20th century the term "Libyan Desert" for this region became a misnomer, and the area of desert within Egypt became known as the " Western Desert" (i.e. west of the Nile, in contradistinction to the Eastern Desert, east of the Nile).
World War I
Following the conquest of the territory by Italy during the Italo-Turkish War
The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( tr, Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", it, Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya") was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. As a result o ...
of 1911–12, the desert became the scene of a two-decade struggle between the Italians and the Senussi starting from 1915, who were centred on the Jebel Akhdar in Cyrenaica and on the Kufra oasis. It ended in 1931 with the conquest of Kufra by the Italians.
Modern exploration
During the 1930s the Libyan desert was the scene of exploration and mapping by the Italian Army and Air Force. Others, such as Ralph Bagnold and Laszlo Almasy also travelled in south-eastern Libya and southern Egypt, searching for the lost oasis of Zerzura
Zerzura ( ar, زرزورة) was a mythical city or oasis located in the Sahara Desert.
The rumor
Zerzura was long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the 13th century, ...
. Bagnold also travelled into northern Chad, to the Mourdi Depression, recording his findings in his book '' Libyan Sands: Travel in a Dead World'', which was published in 1935.
World War II
During the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
the north-eastern desert between El Agheila
El Agheila ( ar, العقيلة, translit=al-ʿUqayla ) is a coastal city at the southern end of the Gulf of Sidra in far western Cyrenaica, Libya. In 1988 it was placed in Ajdabiya District; it was in that district until 1995. It was removed from ...
and the Egyptian border was the scene of heavy fighting between the Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
and the Western Allies
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy ...
, a period known as the Western Desert Campaign.
The deep desert saw operations by the Italian Auto-Saharan Companies, in combat with the Allied Long Range Desert Group
The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was a reconnaissance and raiding unit of the British Army during the Second World War.
Originally called the Long Range Patrol (LRP), the unit was founded in Egypt in June 1940 by Major Ralph Alger Bagnold, acti ...
(LRDG) and the Free French
Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...
''Régiment de Tirailleurs Sénégalais du Tchad
The Senegalese Tirailleurs (french: Tirailleurs Sénégalais) were a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army. They were initially recruited from Senegal,
French West Africa and subsequently throughout Western, Central and Eastern Africa: t ...
'' (RTST). Other actions included the Siege of Giarabub
The siege of Giarabub (now Jaghbub) in Libya, was an engagement between Commonwealth and Italian forces, during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. In the aftermath of , the invasion of Egypt by the Italian 10th Army Operatio ...
(now Jaghbub), the battle of Kufra and the raid on Murzuk, all in 1941.[Pitt pp235-240]
The Calanshio Sand Sea is the site of the missing World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
aircraft '' Lady Be Good''. The wreck was discovered north of Kufra
Kufra () is a basinBertarelli (1929), p. 514. and oasis group in the Kufra District of southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. At the end of nineteenth century Kufra became the centre and holy place of the Senussi order. It also played a minor role in ...
15 years after it was reported missing in 1943.
See also
* Algerian Desert
* Nubian Desert
References
Further reading
*Pitt, Barrie: ''The Crucible of War: Western Desert 1941'' (1980) Jonathan Cape
*Andrew Goudie, ''Great Warm Deserts of the World'' (2002) OUP
*Ralph Bagnold, ''Libyan Sands: Travel in a Dead World'' (2010) Eland
*Theodore Monod, ''Désert libique'' (1994) Arthaud
*Ahmed Hassanein Bey, ''The Lost Oases'' (2006) AUCP
*László Almásy, ''Ismeretlen Szahara (Unknown Sahara)'' (1934) English pdf at fjexpeditions.com
External links
The Libyan Desert
at fjexpeditions.com
at African volunteer.net; retrieved 6 November 2016
''National Geographic Magazine'', September 1924
Gilf Kebir, Uweinat and the Great Sand Sea
{{Authority control
Deserts of Egypt
Deserts of Libya
Deserts of Sudan
Cyrenaica
Sahara