Namib Desert

The Namib is the oldest desert on Earth. It has been dry for at least 55 million years, longer than any other desert in the world. It stretches along the Atlantic coast of southwest Africa, mostly in Namibia (which takes its name from the desert). The Namib is famous for its giant red sand dunes, its eerie Skeleton Coast, and the strange welwitschia plants that survive on ocean fog.

  • Areaapprox. 81,000 km²A long thin strip along the Atlantic coast
  • CountryMainly NamibiaStretches into Angola and South Africa
  • Ageapprox. 55 million yearsThe oldest desert on Earth
  • RainfallUnder 10 mm/yearIn the driest sections
  • Tallest dunesapprox. 380 metresSome of the tallest dunes on Earth
  • Famous coastThe Skeleton CoastA foggy graveyard of ships and whales

How tall are the Namib dunes?

Tallest dunes worldwide (m)
Namibapprox. 380 m
Saharaapprox. 300 m
Gobiapprox. 300 m
Outbackapprox. 100 m

The Namib's "Big Daddy" and "Dune 7" are among the tallest sand dunes on the planet, taller than the Empire State Building.

What is the Namib?

The Namib is a long thin strip of desert running along the Atlantic coast of southwest Africa, from southern Angola through the whole of Namibia to South Africa's Northern Cape province. It is rarely more than 200 km wide. To the east, the desert ends at the steep wall of the Great Escarpment that separates coastal Namibia from the inland plateau. To the west lies the cold Atlantic Ocean.

Why is it so old?

The Namib has been a desert for at least 55 million years, since well before the time of the dinosaur extinction. The desert exists because of the cold Benguela Current that flows northward up the African coast from Antarctica. Cold ocean water cools the air above it, and cool air cannot hold much moisture. By the time the air drifts onshore over the Namib, it has very little water to drop as rain. This same coastal current has been flowing for tens of millions of years, keeping the Namib dry for far longer than any other desert.

Fact Even though the Namib gets almost no rain, it does get regular fog. Cold ocean air rolling onshore at night becomes saturated with water vapour. The fog drifts up to 50 km inland and dampens everything it touches. Many Namib animals and plants survive entirely on this fog water, never seeing a drop of rain.

The Skeleton Coast

The coastal section of the northern Namib is called the Skeleton Coast. The name comes from the bleached bones of whales that wash up here, plus the wrecks of over 1,000 ships driven ashore over the centuries by treacherous Atlantic currents and dense coastal fog. Ship crews who survived the wrecks often died trying to walk back through the desert. The coast is one of the most desolate and beautiful coastlines on Earth.

Welwitschia: the desert's strangest plant

The Namib is home to one of the strangest plants on Earth: the welwitschia. It looks like a few long ragged leaves lying on the desert floor, but it is actually a giant ancient tree that has been compressed and stunted by the harsh environment. A single welwitschia plant has only two leaves, which grow continuously and can become metres long over the centuries. Some welwitschias are over 2,000 years old. The plant gets all its water from fog, absorbing it through pores in its leaves.

Wildlife of the Namib

The Namib supports a surprising variety of life. Desert elephants have adapted to walk huge distances between water holes; they have smaller bodies and bigger feet than typical African elephants. Oryx, the desert antelope, can raise their body temperature without dying, letting them save the water they would otherwise lose by sweating. Fog basking beetles climb to the top of dunes at night and lift their bottoms into the wind so that fog condenses on their backs and runs into their mouths.

Did you know? The famous "Big Daddy" sand dune at Sossusvlei in the Namib is around 380 metres tall, taller than the Empire State Building. Tourists climb it at sunrise, when the slanting light makes the red sand glow.
Deeper dive: the Benguela Current, dune dynamics and the bleached coastlines

The Benguela Current is one of the great cold ocean currents of the world. It flows northward from the Southern Ocean along the western coast of South Africa, Namibia and Angola, fed by deep cold water that wells up to the surface from the Antarctic. The current keeps the South Atlantic off Namibia much colder than its latitude would suggest, sometimes only 12 to 15 °C even in summer. This cold water is responsible not only for the dryness of the Namib but also for one of the world's richest fisheries: the cold water is full of plankton, which feeds enormous shoals of pilchards and anchovies, which feed seabirds, seals, dolphins and whales. The current has been flowing in roughly its current form for over 55 million years, which is why the Namib has been dry so long.

The famous red colour of the Namib's great sand seas (especially in the southern Namib at Sossusvlei) comes from iron oxide coatings on individual sand grains. The longer a sand grain stays in the desert, the more iron oxide builds up on it. The Namib's sand has been there for tens of millions of years, more than enough time to turn deep red. By contrast, the younger sands of the northern Namib are paler. The shapes of the dunes are determined by the wind: the Namib has both "linear" dunes (long ridges parallel to the prevailing wind) and "star" dunes (multi-armed dunes that form where the wind blows from many directions over the year). Some dunes shift their crests slowly over years; others are essentially stationary.

The wrecks along the Skeleton Coast tell the story of why the coast is so dangerous to ships. The Benguela Current flows northward, but the prevailing winds come from the south, so ships sailing south against the wind sometimes drifted northward at night and ended up on the coast. Dense coastal fog made it nearly impossible to see land until ships were aground. Once aground, survival was nearly impossible: the cold ocean was too dangerous to enter, the dunes too high to cross, and any survivors who made it inland would die of thirst within a few days. Some of the most famous wrecks include the British liner Dunedin Star (1942) and the Bom Jesus, a 16th-century Portuguese trader carrying gold coins that washed up in 2008.

The country is Namibia. The neighbouring African desert is the Kalahari.

Geography

The Namib runs for about 2,000 km along the Atlantic coast of southern Africa, covering approximately 81,000 km². It is narrow — typically 80–200 km wide — trapped between the cold Atlantic Ocean and the escarpment rising to the African interior plateau. Famous landmarks include Sossusvlei's red dunes (the world's tallest at 325 metres), the Skeleton Coast and the ghost town of Kolmanskop.

Climate

The Namib is a cold coastal desert — the cold Benguela Current chilling the Atlantic coast prevents rainfall while creating dense coastal fogs. Rainfall is extremely low (2–80 mm/year), but coastal fog occurs on about 180 days per year, providing moisture for a unique ecosystem. Temperatures are mild (10–30°C) along the coast but extreme inland.

Wildlife and plants

The Namib hosts oryx, springbok, brown hyenas, black-backed jackals, and the endemic Namib Desert beetle which collects fog water on its back. The welwitschia plant lives for over 1,000 years on fog moisture alone. Desert-adapted elephants, lions and cheetahs survive in the northern Namib. The Skeleton Coast supports the world's largest Cape fur seal colony.

History

The Namib has been home to the San people (Bushmen) for thousands of years. The coast became notorious among early European sailors as the "Skeleton Coast" due to the many shipwrecks and stranded sailors who died attempting to cross the desert. German colonisers occupied Namibia from the 1880s; diamond mining began near Lüderitz in 1908, creating the ghost towns now buried under sand.