Which Egyptian desert lies west of the Nile River and east of Libya?

The Egyptian desert west of the Nile River and east of Libya is the Western Desert.

It occupies the Egyptian portion of the Sahara between the Nile Valley, the Mediterranean coast, the Libyan border, and Sudan. The name is geographic: it distinguishes this region from the Eastern Desert, which lies across the Nile toward the Red Sea. Most of the Western Desert is a rocky plateau, although it also contains major sand seas and dramatic chalk formations.

A chain of oases, including Siwa, Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla, and Kharga, provides pockets of water and settlement in an otherwise extremely arid landscape. The Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea are among its best-known features, while the White Desert is famous for wind-sculpted limestone formations.

A common mix-up is “Libyan Desert.” That broader historical and geographic term can include eastern Libya, western Egypt, and northwestern Sudan; in modern Egyptian usage, the Egyptian section is usually called the Western Desert.