World Tour 24 hr

The Lakes of Ounianga consist of 18 lakes located in the heart of the Sahara Desert, in an extremely arid region of northern Chad where the average yearly rainfall is no more than 2 mm. They depend on an underground supply of ‘fossil’ water that fell on this area in ancient times when the Saharan climate was much wetter than it is today. Approximately 14,800 to 5,500 years ago the area was occupied by a single large lake, probably tens of kilometers long. As the climate dried out during the subsequent millennia, the lake shrank, and large, wind-driven sand dunes invaded the original depression, dividing it into several smaller basins. The 18 lakes is all that remains today.

The lakes are situated in a shallow basin below sandstone cliffs and hills, from where the ancient water flows. The almost-year-round northeast winds and cloudless skies make for very high evaporation rates. But the underground bed of water-rich rocks are large enough to keep supplying the small lakes with water despite the high evaporation rate. Remarkably, this unique hydrological system is able to sustain the largest permanent freshwater lakes to be found in such an arid desert environment anywhere in the world.