The Moçâmedes Desert is a

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

located in the deep southwest of

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

, near the border with

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

. The desert forms the northern tip of the

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

.The editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Mocamedes-Desert From the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

in the west, the desert gradually rises to a semiarid plain where African ironwood trees grow. Few people live in the desert; communities are found mainly in small fishing towns on the coast. The unique tumboa (Welwitschia mirabilis), a desert plant with a short, wide trunk and two gigantic leaves that can survive for a century, is endemic to the desert. Little water is present in the desert surface.

References

Deserts of Africa Landforms of Angola {{Angola-geo-stub