From the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, the Sahara Desert extends across all of northern Africa. The portion of the desert that occupies southwestern Algeria, Niger, Mali and Mauritania is considered the West Sahara Desert. The West Sahara Desert occupies approximately 99,000 square miles of land. Unlike other parts of the Sahara, the West Sahara has a relatively cooler climate and more rainfall. There is also a higher occurrence of trees,shrubs and hard-rock mountains.
The Kalahari Desert occupies approximately 900,000 square miles of land in southwestern Africa including almost all of Botswana, about half of Namibia and portions of Angola and South Africa. The Kalahari Desert is home to a number of wildlife reserves such as the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, which protects a diverse range of exotic and endangered animals, including the African Wild Dog and the Blue Wildebeest. The Kalahari Desert is also home to the originally nomadic hunter-gathers known as the Basarwa or popularly known in the media as the "Bushmen."
The Namib Desert begins where the Kalahari Desert ends. Considered to be over 50 million years old by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Namib Desert is popularly known as the oldest desert in the world. Its formal name derives from the fact that it occupies nearly all of present day Namibia's coastal region. The Namib Desert is over 30,000 square miles large and gets less than five inches of rain a year. According to National Geographic, the Namib Desert is also home to the Sperrgebeit, one of the world most famous diamond deposits.
