page_title: Libyan Desert
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Libyan Desert / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Moving sand dunes, rocks and mountains in Tadrart Acacus a desert area in south western Libya, part of the Sahara. Français&#160;: Dunes mouvantes, rochers et montagnes dans le Tadrart Acacus, une région du Sahara dans le sud-ouest libyen. Italiano: Dune in movimento oltre a rocce e montagne nel Tadrart Acacus, un'area deserta nel sud-ovest libico, deserto del Sahara.
context_page_description: The Libyan Desert forms the northern and eastern part of the Sahara Desert. It describes that part of the Sahara that lies within the present-day state of Libya; it also historically describes the desert to the south of Ancient Libya, a territory which lay to the east of the present-day state. The Libyan Desert is one of the driest, harshest and most remote parts of the Sahara, the world's largest hot desert. This extended desert country is barren, dry and rainless.
context_section_description: Modern Libya is divided into the regions of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and the Fezzan. The country covers an area of 1,760,000 square kilometres (680,000 sq mi). most of which is desert save for a narrow coastal strip to the north on the shore of the Mediterranean, and the mountains of Cyrenaica (the Jebel Akhdar, or "Green Mountains").
  The desert covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi), 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 and hamada 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 1,000 m, 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 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 (1,980 m), 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 in the southeast, and Murzuk 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 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, bordering Chad, and to west lies the Idehan Ubari, 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, is a field of Libyan desert glass. 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's ancient jewellery.
  The Libyan Desert is barely populated apart from the modern settlements at oases of the lower Cyrenaica region in southeastern Libya. The indigenous population are Bisharin tribe, Mahas, 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 to the east of the Nile River, which lies between the Nile and the Red Sea.
caption: Acasus landscape
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