Atlas › Places › Sahel

Plain

Sahel

The Sahel is the shore of the Sahara — a semi-arid band where the desert meets farmable Africa. Rainfall lines here are borders between herders and farmers, and as they shift, the region has become a belt of coups and insurgencies from Mali to Sudan: climate geography converting directly into instability.

15.9°N · 14.3°E

Explore Sahel on the interactive map →

Map stories featuring Sahel

THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA · BORDERS FROM A TABLEThe Lines That Broke a Continent
← All places·Map stories·Open the atlas