The Western Desert is the north-eastern part of the Sahara that extends from the neighbouring country to the west, Libya, to the Nile valley
Although it is extremely inhospitable, it was always crossed by caravan routes for the trade of people and goods and for connections between the oases and the Nile valley. Fascinating desert landscapeWith an area of approximately 690,000 sq km/266,411 sq mi, the region occupies approximately two-thirds of Egypt. To this day, only a few hundred thousand people lived in the oases; however, this will change in the future if the plan to resettlement immigrants from the overpopulated Nile valley in the Western Desert is successful. The plan is to make the valley region between the oases of Kharga, Dakhla, Farafra, and Bahariyya arable with the aid of low-evaporation irrigation and leaching methods and to settle it as the New Valley. Although initial results of this program are encouraging, it appears the limited ground-water reserves impose natural limits. The fact that considerable oil and gas deposits have been found and that other valuable natural resources suspected to be present has also increased the importance of the region in recent times.Travelling in the Western DesertIn spite of its fertile oases, Egypt’s Western Desert is still a landscape known to be extremely hostile. Therefore excursions into the desert should be well prepared, since extreme temperature fluctuations between +52°C during the day and -5°C at night as well as fierce dust and sand storms that can last several days have to be expected. The safest approach is to participate in an organized tour with 4WD off-road vehicles. Such excursions can be booked by the travel agency before your trip, or in the tourist centres of the country on the Nile. A tour through the Western Desert, which ideally starts from Cairo, also passes through the large oases of Bahariyya,Farafra,
