The Kaouar (or Kawar) is a series of ten

oases In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

in northeast

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

, covering about from north to south, and east to west. They are on the eastern edge of the

Ténéré The Ténéré (Tuareg languages, Tuareg: Tenere, literally: "desert") is a desert region in south central Sahara. It comprises a vast plain of sand stretching from northeastern Niger to western Chad, occupying an area of over . The Ténéré's b ...

desert, between the

Tibesti Mountains The Tibesti Mountains are a mountain range in the central Sahara, primarily located in the extreme north of Chad, with a small portion located in southern Libya. The highest peak in the range, Emi Koussi, lies to the south at a height of and i ...

in the east and the

Aïr Mountains The Aïr Mountains or Aïr Massif (Air Tamajeq language, Tamajăq: ''Ayǝr''; Hausa language, Hausa: Eastern ''Azbin'', Western ''Abzin'') is a triangular massif, located in northern Niger, within the Sahara. Part of the West Sa ...

in the west and between the

Fezzan Fezzan ( , ; ; ; ) is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise in ...

in the north and

Lake Chad Lake Chad (, Kanuri language, Kanuri: ''Sádǝ'', ) is an endorheic freshwater lake located at the junction of four countries: Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, in western and central Africa respectively, with a catchment area in excess of . ...

in the south. They lie on the

leeward In geography and seamanship, windward () and leeward () are directions relative to the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e., towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point o ...

side of a 100-meter-high north–south

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

and easterly winds striking the escarpment provide easy access to groundwater for the oases. Running south to north,

Bilma Bilma is an oasis town and commune in north east Niger with, as of the 2012 census, a total population of 4,016 people. It lies protected from the desert dunes under the Kaouar Cliffs and is the largest town along the Kaouar escarpment. It ...

Dirkou Dirkou is a town in the Bilma Department, Agadez Region of north-eastern Niger. It lies in the northern Kaouar escarpment, a north–south line of cliffs which form an isolated oasis in the Sahara desert. As of 2011, the commune had a total po ...

, Aney and

Séguédine Séguédine is a town in central eastern Niger, lying at the far northern tip of the Kaouar escarpment, an inhabited oasis in the midst of the Sahara Desert. It is a Commune of Bilma Department, Agadez Region. While isolated in modern Niger, i ...

are the largest towns. The Kaouar oases are famous for salt and date production, and were along the route of the great Bornu to Fezzan caravan trail. This was the major point of contact between the African

Sahel The Sahel region (; ), or Sahelian acacia savanna, is a Biogeography, biogeographical region in Africa. It is the Ecotone, transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a ...

and the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

civilisations until the 19th century. Numerous archeological sites and rock paintings attest to human habitation here reaching back some 10,000 years to when the area was surrounded by lush grasslands. In 1997, the Kaouar was submitted as a tentative candidate for

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

status as part of ''The salt route from Air to Kaouar.''UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Tentative Lists Database, La Route du Sel de l'Air au Kaouar
The oases have been designated as a

Ramsar site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **

References

Bibliography

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External links

Image galleries from the Kaouar

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060504002236/http://www.reineccius.com/tenere1/tenere00.htm Photo gallery from the Ténéré and the Kaouar Sahara Ramsar sites in Niger {{Niger-geo-stub