Western Desert

The Western Desert is part of the Sahara Desert and occupies all of west of the fertile strip of the Nile to the border with Libya. It is utterly barren, except for six oases, described here.
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Photo: RolandUnger, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Photo: Wikimedia, CC0.

Essential Destinations

Top destinations include Siwa and Kharga Oasis.

Photo: Inkey, CC BY 3.0.
is an oasis and town in the Western Desert of Egypt. It is the most remote of Egypt's five western oases. The oasis is 80 km long by 20 km wide, with a population in 2016 of some 33,000.

Photo: Wikimedia, CC BY 4.0.
The lit. 'the outer'; Coptic: ⲟⲩⲁϩ ⲛ̀ϩⲏⲃ wah enhib, "Oasis of ", ⲟⲩⲁϩ ⲙ̀ⲯⲟⲓ wah empsoi "Oasis of Psoi") is the southernmost of 's five western oases.

Photo: RolandUnger, CC BY-SA 3.0.
is an oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt about 200 km north-south and 90 km east-west including various satellite oases such as Abu Minqar. Although it is the second largest inhabited Egyptian depression, it has the smallest population and the fewest settlements.

Destinations to Discover

Explore places such as Dakhla Oasis and Bahariyya.

Photo: argenberg, CC BY 2.0.
Dakhla is an oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, 740 km from Cairo. It extends some 80 km from east to west and 25 km from north to south.

Photo: Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0.
is an oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. It is 370 km from Cairo, the closest of the five western oases, and it serves as a staging post for reaching the others.

Photo: L-BBE, CC BY 3.0.
is in the Western Desert region of . It is a large nature reserve in Egypt about 30 kilometres north the depression el-Farāfra.

Photo: RolandUnger, CC BY-SA 3.0.
is in Western Desert of . The area is famous for its beautiful natural landscapes and prehistoric drawings on the cliffs and rock caves.

Western Desert

Latitude of center
27° north
Longitude of center
28° east
Elevation
85 metres (279 feet)
Geo­Names ID
356684
Wiki­data ID
Q14314106
This page is based on GeoNames, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikivoyage.
We’d love your help improving our open data sources. Thank you for contributing.

Satellite Map

Discover Western Desert from above in high-definition satellite imagery.
© Stadia Maps, Airbus DS, CNES, PlanetObserver, and Copernicus

In Other Languages

From Arabic to Urdu—“Western Desert” goes by many names.
  • Arabic: “الصحراء الغربية (مصر)”
  • Arabic: “الصحراء الغربية”
  • Arabic: “الصحرى الغربية”
  • Basque: “Mendebaldeko basamortua”
  • Bulgarian: “Западна пустиня”
  • Catalan: “Desert occidental (Egipte)”
  • Cebuano: “Western Desert”
  • Chinese: “西部沙漠”
  • Czech: “Západní poušť”
  • Dutch: “Westelijke Woestijn”
  • Egyptian Arabic: “الصحرا الغربيه فى مصر”
  • Esperanto: “Okcidenta Dezerto”
  • French: “Désert occidental”
  • Galician: “Deserto occidental”
  • German: “Westliche Wüste”
  • Greek: “Δυτική Έρημος”
  • Hebrew: “המדבר המערבי”
  • Indonesian: “Gurun Barat”
  • Italian: “Deserto occidentale”
  • Japanese: “西方砂漠”
  • Japanese: “西部の砂漠”
  • Japanese: “西部砂漠 (エジプト)”
  • Japanese: “西部砂漠地帯”
  • Mongolian: “Баруун Цөл”
  • Persian: “صحرای غربی (مصر)”
  • Persian: “صحرای غربی”
  • Portuguese: “Deserto Ocidental”
  • Russian: “Западная пустыня”
  • Slovak: “Západná púšť”
  • Slovenian: “Zahodna puščava”
  • Spanish: “Desierto occidental”
  • Swedish: “Western Desert”
  • Urdu: “مغربی صحرا (مصر)”
  • Urdu: “مغربی صحرا”

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