Daily Bangla Times: The world famous desert Sahara is called 'The Great Desert'. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world located in the African continent.

Its area is 94,00,000 square kilometers. As a result, it spread almost throughout North Africa. Sahara desert extends to countries like Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Niger, Mali etc.

Most of the Sahara consists of mountains, plateaus, sand and barren land, but there are also several oases. Most of the people of the Sahara live in these oases. However, some nomadic tribes live in more remote areas. In total, the population of this vast Sahara desert is not more than 2 million. Their main livelihood is rearing of goats, sheep and camels and cultivation of dates, wheat, barley etc.

The climate in the Sahara is extremely hot and dry during the day. It gets quite cold at night. Sometimes even snow accumulates on the top of the watch. Sometimes there are terrible dust storms. The temperature fluctuates between 10 and 43 degrees Celsius during the winter and summer seasons. The average annual rainfall is about 20 cm.

The sources of water in this desert are oases, wells and some springs. Since the nomads do not live in a fixed place, one of their special tasks is to find different sources of water.

Despite being a desert, the Sahara has many valuable minerals. Especially in the Libyan and Algerian parts of this desert, there is a lot of oil and natural gas. And minerals such as copper, iron, phosphate are spread throughout the Sahara.

As there are very few people in the Sahara, there are not many other animals either. Animals here include camels, snakes, chameleons, jackals, addex antelopes, ostriches, gazelles, desert goats, etc. 

In addition to oases in the Sahara, grass, shrubs and small trees grow in some parts of the desert. These plants can send their roots very deep into the sand or soil in search of the water they need. Many plants collect water from the air through their leaves.

But archaeologists think that ten thousand years ago, the climate in the Sahara was not as bad as it is now, but much better. At that time there were many lakes and small rivers in the Sahara. Elephants, giraffes and other animals roamed the Sahara at that time.