Which desert in southern Africa is one of the world’s oldest deserts?

The Namib Desert in southern Africa is widely regarded as one of the world’s oldest deserts.

It occupies a narrow coastal belt along Namibia’s Atlantic coast and extends into parts of Angola and South Africa. Estimates of its age commonly reach tens of millions of years, making it far older than most familiar desert landscapes. The cold Benguela Current helps keep the coast dry by chilling moist air and reducing rainfall.

Although rainfall is scarce, coastal fog is important to the Namib’s ecology. Some beetles collect droplets from fog, while plants and animals have adaptations for surviving long dry periods. The desert’s dune fields, gravel plains, and rocky mountains create strikingly different habitats.

The Namib is not the same as the Kalahari. The Kalahari lies farther inland and is a semi-arid sandy basin, while the Namib is a coastal desert. The famous Sossusvlei area is part of the Namib’s southern dune region.