The Sahara desert is the world's largest hot desert.It covers an area of around 8.54 million square km. The Sahara desert touches eleven countries. These are Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Marocco, Niger, Sudan, Tunisia and Western Sahara. Besides the vast stretches of sands that Sahara desert is also covered with, there are also gravel plains and elevated plateaus with bare rocky surface. These rocky surfaces are more than 2500m high at some places. Sahara desert is very dry and scorching hot. It has a short rainy season. The temperature in the Sahara during day rise as high as 50°C and during winter it goes low of below 0°C.
Sahara desert is home to a variety of plants and animals. Cactus, date palms and acacia are popular vegetation of it. Camels, hyenas, jackals, foxes, scorpions, many varieties of snakes and lizards are found here. Bedouins and Tuaregs, nomadic tribes of Sahara desert, inhabited here and they rear livestock such as goats, sheep, camels and horses. The Oasis in the Sahara and the Nile Valley in Egypt supports settled population. Date palms are grown in these regions.