The Sahara Desert is not entirely made up of sand dunes, with only 15% covered by them. It also has scrub vegetation, rock plateaus, and gravel. The area has a long history of human habitation and trade routes, and is comparable in size to China or the US. The Nile and Niger rivers are the only permanent ones in the desert, which receives over 3,600 hours of sunshine per year.
Contrary to popular belief, the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa is not made up entirely of towering sand dunes. In fact, only about 15% of the desert is covered by sand dunes. Instead, most of the desert is filled with scrub vegetation. The Sahara also contains many bare rock plateaus, along with areas of gravel. The Sahara desert extends into parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan. People have lived in the areas surrounding the Sahara for millennia. There is evidence of groups living in Nubia during the Neolithic period, starting around 10,000 BC. Throughout recorded history, the area has contained trade routes and was the center of the slave trade in the 4th and 5th centuries AD
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The surface area of the Sahara — about 3.6 million square miles (9.4 million square km) — is comparable to the land mass of China or the United States.
The Nile and Niger rivers are the only two permanent rivers in the Sahara. Both are fed by rainfall outside the confines of the desert.
The Sahara Desert usually sees more than 3,600 hours of sunshine each year.
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