Sahara desert ocean

The Sahara, located in Northern Africa, is the world's largest desert and second largest desert after Antarctica at over 3.5 million square miles (9 million square kilometers). Almost as large as the United States, it crosses the borders of 11 nations. While much of the desert is uninhabited, two million people are scattered across its vast expanses, not including those who live along the Nile and Niger riverbanks. The name Sahara is an English pronunciation of the Arabic word for desert.