On which continent is the Sahara Desert located?

The Sahara Desert is located on the continent of Africa. It stretches across North Africa, from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean coast southward to the Sahel.

Covering roughly 9.2 million square kilometres, the Sahara is the world's largest hot desert and the third-largest desert overall, after Antarctica and the Arctic. It extends across parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara.

A common mistake is imagining the Sahara as an endless sea of sand. Sand dunes cover only part of it; the landscape also includes rocky plateaus, gravel plains, mountains, dry valleys and salt flats. The name Sahara comes from the Arabic word ṣaḥrāʾ, meaning “desert.”

The region has not always been this dry. During the African Humid Period, much of today’s Sahara supported grasslands, lakes and wildlife. Climate cycles driven partly by changes in Earth’s orbital orientation have repeatedly shifted the desert between greener and more arid phases.