photo credit: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Sahara_satellite_hires.jpg

Now I'm going to look at life in the Sahara Desert, famous for being the biggest desert after the Arctic and Antarctica, this desert is not one you'd want to get lost in. It stretches for almost 10,000,000 square kilometres and takes up 8% of the earth's land area.

Facts

• 2 million people live in the Sahara. These are mostly nomadic people who travel around the desert.
• Temperatures in the Sahara drop at night time to below freezing and during the day can climg to as hot as 57 degrees celsius.
• It is said the Sahara desert is 30% sand and 70% gravel.
• The highest point in the Sahara desert is a volcano in northern Chad called Emi Koussi. It stands almost 3,450 meters tall.
• The average rainfall in the Sahara desert is 2.3inches per year.
• The most common animals that are domesticated in the Sahara desert are goats and camels.
• The climate adjusts the size of the Sahara desert.
• Below the surface of the desert are water sources called aquifers. Aquifers sometimes resurface and form oases.

Life in the Sahara desert is very tough as you can imagine. People who live in the Sahara grow crops on land that has been irrigated in an oasis. Some others herd goats, sheep and camels in search for grass which has grown due to recent rainfall or is situated along the fringe of the desert. These people live in collapsable tents so they can move fast once the grass has been eaten.

To protect themselves from the sun, Nomadic people living in the Sahara  wear long robes made out of wool called barracans, turbans, and sandals to protect their feet from the burning ground. Water is very scarce and very precious, and nomads trade the commodities they make/find themselves (wool, animal hide and fruits) at markets in villages. They eat fruits that grow on trees in the oases like dates, and make cheese out of goat's milk or camel's milk.

Villages are spread out in the Sahara where there is an oasis. Now, in these villages there are places for the Nomads to rest and trade. Nowadays some villages look like cities and transport to these places has improved.