The Kalahari

By araut

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The Kalahari Desert is a large, arid to semi-arid sandy area in southern Africa that covers about 500,000 km². It covers 70% of Botswana, and parts of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. Some sources extend the area of the Kalahari to over 2.5 million km² (Sahara Desert has almost 10 million km²) and include Gabon, Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, and Zambia.

The Kalahari has vast areas covered by red-brown sands and no permanent surface water. Drainage is by dry valleys, seasonally inundated pans, and the large salt pans of the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana and Etosha Pan in Namibia. However, the Kalahari is not a true desert. Parts of the Kalahari receive over 250 mm of erratic rainfall annually and are quite well vegetated.
It is the most umid desert on planet; it is only truly arid in the south-west (under 175 mm of rain annually) making the Kalahari a fossil desert. Summer temperatures in the Kalahari range from 20 to 40 °C. In winter, the Kalahari has a dry, cold climate with frosts at night. The average low winter temperature can be below 0 °C.

There are large coal, copper, and nickel deposits in the region. One of the largest diamond mines in the world is located at Orapa in the Makgadikgadi, northeastern Kalahari.

Kalahari is derived from the Tswana word Kgalagadi, meaning ´The Great Thirst´.

* from wikipedia.org at [LINK]

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Terragen + Photoshop

any comments or tips on how i may improve this, or my next terragen scenery, will be most welcome.
tanx.

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