NCERT Book Class 7 Social Science (Geography) Chapter 7 Life in the Deserts

In Chapter 5, you have seen that water means life to
plants, animals and people. It is difficult for anyone to
live in places where there is no water to drink, where Glossary
there is no grass for their cattle to feed on and where
there is no water to help the crops to grow. Desert: It is an arid
We will now learn about the places in the world where region characteriesed
by extremely high or
people have learned to cope with extreme harsh
low temperatures and
temperatures; in some places as hot as fire and some as
has scarce vegetation.
cold as ice. These are the desert areas of the world. These
are characterised by low rainfall, scanty vegetation and
extreme temperatures. Depending on the temperatures
there can be hot deserts or cold deserts. The people
inhabit these lands wherever little water is available to
practise agriculture.

THE HOT DESERT – SAHARA
Look at the map of the world and the
continent of Africa. Locate the Sahara
desert covering a large part of North
Africa. It is the world’s largest desert. It
has an area of around 8.54 million
sq. km. Do you recall that India has an
area of 3.28 million sq. km? The Sahara
desert touches eleven countries. These
are Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali,
Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan,
Tunisia and Western Sahara.
Fig. 7.1: The Sahara Desert
When you think of a desert the picture
that immediately comes to your mind is that of sand. But
besides the vast stretches of sands, that Sahara desert is
covered with, there are also gravel plains and elevated
plateaus with bare rocky surface. These rocky surfaces
may be more than 2500m high at some places.