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Egypt Western Desert
The Western Desert covers about 700,000 square kilometers
(equivalent in size to Texas) and accounts for about two-thirds
of Egypt's land area. This immense desert to the west of the Nile
spans the area from the Mediterranean Sea south to the Sudanese
border. The desert's Jilf al Kabir Plateau has an altitude of
about 1,000 meters, an exception to the uninterrupted territory
of basement rocks covered by layers of horizontally bedded
sediments forming a massive plain or low plateau. The Great Sand
Sea lies within the desert's plain and extends from the Siwah
Oasis to Jilf al Kabir. Scarps (ridges) and deep depressions
(basins) exist in several parts of the Western Desert, and no
rivers or streams drain into or out of the area.
The government has considered the Western Desert a frontier
region and has divided it into two governorates at about the
twenty-eighth parallel: Matruh to the north and New Valley (Al
Wadi al Jadid) to the south. There are seven important
depressions in the Western Desert, and all are considered oases
except the largest, Qattara, the water of which is salty. The
Qattara Depression is approximately 15,000 square kilometers
(about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island) and is largely
below sea level (its lowest point is 133 meters below sea level).
Badlands, salt marshes, and salt lakes cover the sparsely
inhabited Qattara Depression.
Limited agricultural production, the presence of some natural
resources, and permanent settlements are found in the other six
depressions, all of which have fresh water provided by the Nile
or by local groundwater. The Siwah Oasis, close to the Libyan
border and west of Qattara, is isolated from the rest of Egypt
but has sustained life since ancient times. The Siwa's cliff-hung
Temple of Amun was renowned for its oracles for more than 1,000
years. Herodotus and Alexander the Great were among the many
illustrious people who visited the temple in the pre-Christian
era.
The other major oases form a topographic chain of basins
extending from the Al Fayyum Oasis (sometimes called the Fayyum
Depression) which lies sixty kilometers southwest of Cairo, south
to the Bahriyah, Farafirah, and Dakhilah oases before reaching
the country's largest oasis, Kharijah. A brackish lake, Birkat
Qarun, at the northern reaches of Al Fayyum Oasis, drained into
the Nile in ancient times. For centuries sweetwater artesian
wells in the Fayyum Oasis have permitted extensive cultivation in
an irrigated area that extends over 1,800 square kilometers.
Data as of December 1990
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