Sahara Desert The Sahara is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilo-metres, it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall and it measures approximately 4,800 km from east to west and between north to south and has a total area of some 8,600,000 square km the actual area varies as the desert expands and contracts over time. The Sahara is bordered in the west by the Atlantic Ocean in the north by the Atlas Mountains and Mediterranean Sea, in the east by the Red Sea, and in the south by the Sahel -—a semiarid region that forms a transitional zone between the Sahara to the north and the belt of humid savannas to the south.
