WESTERN DESERT OF EGYPT

(LIBYAN DESERT - GREAT SAND SEA)

The Western Desert of Egypt

The Western Desert of Egypt is an area of the Sahara  which lies west of the river Nile, up to the Libyan border, and south from the Mediterranean sea to the border with Sudan. The Western Desert is mostly rocky desert , though an area of sandy desert, known as the Great Sand Sea, lies to the west against the Libyan border. The desert covers an area of 262, 800 sq miles (680,650 km²) which is two-thirds of the land area of the country. Its highest elevation is 3,300 ft (1000m) in the Gilf Kebir plateau to the far south-west of the country, on the Egypt-Sudan-Libya border. The Western Desert is barren and uninhabited save for a chain of oases which extend in an arc from Siwa, in the north-west, to Kharga in the south. However it has been the scene of conflict in modern times, particularly during the Second World War.

The Great Sand Sea

The Great Sand Sea is a roughly lung-shaped area of sandy desert lying astride the border with Libya, 200 miles inland from the Mediterranean. The sea is divided by a long peninsula of rocky desert along the border, leaving the eastern lobe in Egypt and the western in Libya, where it is called the Calanshio desert. On the Egyptian side it extends from a point south of Siwa for 400 miles into the interior, to a point north of the Jebel Uweinat at the border to Sudan.

In pre-historic times the Western desert is thought to have been a semi-arid grassland, home to Savannah animals and hunter-gatherers; evidence of abundant wildlife and surface water can be found in the cave paintings of the Gilf Kebir. It is thought over-grazing and climate change led to desertification and the current geography. Even after this, the oases remained inhabited, and the Antiquities Museum at Kharga has artifacts dating back to the time before the early Egyptian kingdoms.

In ancient times the area was regarded as being under the jurisdiction of the kingdom of Egypt, and Egyptian remains can be seen in all the oases. In 636 BC an expedition by the Persian king Cambyses II was lost in the desert searching for the Oracle of Ammon, at Siwa. In 1882 the kingdom of Egypt became a British protectorate, and in 1912 the territory to the east was claimed by Italy as the colony of Libya.