The Siwa Oasis lies in which Egyptian desert?

The Siwa Oasis lies in Egypt’s Western Desert. It sits in a low depression between the Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea, roughly 50 kilometers east of Egypt’s border with Libya.

Although surrounded by arid terrain, Siwa is fertile because groundwater reaches the surface through natural artesian wells and springs. The oasis contains about 200 natural springs, along with salt lakes, date palms, olive groves, and cultivated fields. Its depression reaches about 19 meters below sea level.

Siwa is also famous for its ancient religious history. It was home to an oracle of Amun, known to Greek writers as the oracle of Zeus Ammon. Alexander the Great visited the oasis in the fourth century BCE, and later traditions say the oracle confirmed his divine status and legitimacy as pharaoh.

The Western Desert is the broad Egyptian region west of the Nile, also called the Libyan Desert in a wider geographic sense. It should not be confused with Egypt’s Eastern Desert, which lies between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea.