Egypt geography
Egypt geography: Structures, river system, landforms has roughly an almost square shape and is touched by the Tropic of Cancer. The Egypt geography alternates between the northern coastal landscape, which is characterized by steppe and thorn savannah, deserts, semi-deserts, many oases, sea areas and the river landscape of the Nile. In addition to the Suez Canal from Port Said to Port Taufiq near Suez, the Nile is Egypt’s main artery. Its source river, which is furthest away from its mouth, the 24,000 km² Nile Delta, is the Kagera, which originates in the mountainous regions of Burundi and Rwanda. The stream has a length of about 6852 km and reaches its natural riverbed in Egypt at Aswan after the Aswan High Dam. Apart from a few oases and small harbors on the coasts, its water and fertile shore regions alone provide the basis for cultivation and settlement. This area of Egypt geography makes up about five percent of the territory.
The national territory can be divided into seven natural units:
In the extreme south lies the section of the Nile valley between Abu Simbel and Aswan, which belongs to Nubia and Upper Egypt and is now occupied by Lake Nasser. In the further course, the Nile has cut a box-shaped cut into the limestone table of the desert. From the exit of the river from Lake Nasser to Cairo, the Nile Valley forms a fertile river oasis up to 25 km wide.
In Lower Egypt, north of Cairo, the Nile forks into two main estuaries between Rosette and Damietta and forms an intensively cultivated delta landscape of around 23,000 km² of deposited Nile mud, interspersed with countless smaller estuaries, canals and irrigation systems.
See also about Egypt weather.
Egypt geography: Libyan Desert
The Libyan Desert west of the Nile, as a wide, flat strata, occupies around two thirds of the Egyptian national area. To the north lies the relatively low Libyan Plateau, which in Egypt reaches a height of up to 241 m. To the south-east, Egypt geography in the Qattara Depression, filled with salt marshes, drops down to 133 m below sea level, in the south-west the desert rises to 1098 m. Apart from that, only individual basins and lowlands with the oases of Siwa, Bahariyya, Farafra, Dachla and Charga interrupt the approximately 1000 km long sand and dune landscape from north to south. Around 100 km southwest of Cairo is the 1827 km² Fayyum Basin, a basin-like oasis landscape, in the northern part of which is the 230 km² Lake Qarun.
In contrast, the Arabian Desert to the east of the Nile is dominated by a mountain range that is heavily indented by wadis and reaches a height of more than 2000 m in the middle section. The Arabian Desert is the western section of an upwelling zone, the central part of which collapsed in the Tertiary and today forms the more than 1000 m deep graben of the Red Sea. This in turn is part of the Syrian-African Rift Valley system.
The upwelling zone continues on the Sinai Peninsula. Here the highest mountain in Egypt rises with the Dschabal Katrina (Katharinenberg) (2637 m). The Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba flow around the peninsula from the west, south and east. The 162 km long Suez Canal connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
Apart from the Nile Delta, mostly flat dunes line the Egyptian Mediterranean coast. In contrast, the coastal areas on the Red Sea are more rugged – the mountain ranges often reach close to the sea. Due to the high water temperature, coral reefs are often found here.
Read more here on Wikipedia.