Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Sudan and Tunisia. It includes many landforms such as rivers (Nile River, Senegal River), mountain ranges (Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains), smaller deserts and ergs (Libyan Desert, Tenere, Egyptian Sand Sea, Qattara Depression, Erg of Bilma, Erg Chebbi), lakes (Lake Chad) and oases (Bahariya, Ghardaïa, Timimoun). With a size of 8.6 million km², is the world's largest desert, covering large parts of North Africa.
Around 4 million people live here. Its maximum length is 4,800 km, running from west to east, and up to 1,200 km from north to south. To the north, Sahara is bordered by the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea; in the west by the Atlantic Ocean; in the south, the desert zone reaches 16º northern latitude; in the east it is bordered by the Nile. Still the desert continues to the east of the river until it reaches the Red Sea, but this is not considered a part of the Sahara.
Sahara is very dry but there is an annual rainfall in most regions, although just a few dozens of millimetre. Sahara has a subtropical climate in its northern parts, and a tropical one in the south. Winters in the north are cold to cool; in the south, mild. Summers are hot all over the desert. The highest temperature every recorded is 58ºC in Aziziyah, Libya. Metallic minerals are very important to most Saharan countries. Algeria and Mauritania have several major deposits of iron ore, while smaller deposits are found in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Western Sahara and Niger.
Only 200,000 km² of Sahara are fertile oases, where dates, corn and fruits are grown. The few fertile regions today are fed by underground rivers and underground basins. Many of Sahara's oases rests in depressions (areas under sea level) allowing water to surface from underground reservoirs; artesian wells. Except all these facts there is much more at our site Sahara-Desert.net e.g. about plants, animals, climate etc.