Great Western Erg

Grand Erg Occidental

The desert of the Grand Erg Occidental is the second largest of the two main ergs of Algeria.

General Information

Contrary to popular belief, much of the Sahara is not soft sand dunes with green oases and blue lakes glistening in their midst. In fact, it is a huge number of rocks, and they occupy an area about the size of the United States of America. Here the Sahara turns into an endless sea of sand dunes, which can be recognized from photographs – this landscape phenomenon is called erg. Its area is 80 thousand km². The living conditions here are such that you will not meet people, there are no villages or roads passing through the desert, only endless dunes.

The average altitude rises gradually to the northwest of the erg, reaching 610 meters. The dunes reach here an incredible height of up to 300 meters. On the southern edge of Africa’s sandy desert, the dunes are lower, groundwater is closer to the surface, and there are more oases and, consequently, more settlements. Along the western and eastern edge of the erg, highways to the Central Sahara skirt the erg, while in the south the roads pass through oases.

The sands of the Greater Western Erg are held back in the northwest by the Atlas Mountains, from which the drying seasonal rivers of the Sahara drain. To the south, southeast, and southwest, the sands crescent around the rocky Tademait Plateau, with the Great Western Erg passing into the Saint-Ravi Erg to the west and the Great Eastern Erg to the east.

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Attractions

In addition to the sand dunes and oases, travelers should check out the Sahara Museum, zoo and botanical garden in the town of Beni Abbes, the tomb of African explorer monk Charles Eugène de Foucault in El Golea, and North African prehistoric rock engravings in the oasis of Tagit.

Interesting facts

The Great Western Erg is a very dangerous place, not only because of the lack of water, but also because of the strongest sandstorms. Wind speeds can reach up to 500 kilometers per hour. The storm raises fine grains of sand to a height of one and a half kilometers. In 1947, there was such a strong storm here that the pink color of African sand stained the Swiss Alps! Needless to say, numerous caravans have disappeared. Another problem is the quicksand. There are no settlements in Western Erg itself, but roads circle it along the line of the location of rare oases.

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Most of North Africa’s rock art is located in the Saharan Atlas region, along a narrow line of oases. The greatest number of fine art monuments are found in the Tagit Oasis, which is a group of oases (Funganya, Tagit, Barebi, Bagdi, Tathanya and El Ouedi). South of the oasis of Tathanya there is a large cluster of stone blocks with deeply incised drawings on a polished plane. Both individual animals and whole compositions are depicted on the stone. One can often see buffalo, antelope, elephants and ostriches following each other.