Running along the south of desert is the plains region known as the Sahel.

A relatively dry tropical savanna, the Sahel extends beyond the borders of Burkina Faso, from the Horn of Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, and borders the Sahara to its north and the fertile region of the Sudan to the South.

North Africa enjoyed a fertile climate during the subpluvial era ; what is now the Sahara supported a savanna type of ecosystem, with elephant, giraffe, and other grassland and woodland animals now typical of the Sahel region south of the desert.

* overgrazing consequences in region: 2010 Sahel famine

The Sahel is the transitional zone between the Sahara and the tropical savanna ( the Sudan region ) and forest-savanna mosaic to the south.

The term " Sudan " derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān " land of the Blacks ", and is used more loosely of West and Central Africa in general, especially the Sahel region.

| 1 | Earlier came migrations from surrounding territories including the north, the east, and the Sahel region of Africa.

The 2010 Sahel famine hit millions in Niger and across West Africa face food shortages after erratic rains hit farming in countries in the Sahel region south of the Sahara desert, the European Commission's aid group said Thursday.

The topography of the Sahel is mainly flat, and the region mostly lies between 200 and 400 meters elevation.

The first instances of domestication of plants for agricultural purposes in Africa occurred in the Sahel region circa 5000 BC, when sorghum and African rice began to be cultivated.

The Sahel states were limited from expanding south into the forest zone of the Ashanti and Yoruba as mounted warriors were all but useless in the forests and the horses and camels could not survive the heat and diseases of the region.

pl: Sahel ( region geograficzny )

They expanded southward from the Tafilalt region into the Sahel under their legendary queen Tin Hinan, who is assumed to have lived in the 4th or 5th century.

During 2004 – 2007, U. S. Special Forces teams trained Tuareg units of the Nigerien Army in the Sahel region as part of the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership.

The evidence of oral tradition is that the Dagaaba are an outgrowth of the Mole-Dagbani group which migrated to the semi-arid Sahel region in the fourteenth century CE.

Their overall coloration is – apparently plesiomorphically – shared in sub-Saharan Africa by the somewhat more distantly related Grey-backed Fiscal ( L. excubitoroides ) which is found from the Sahel eastwards, and Mackinnon's Fiscal ( L. mackinnoni ) of the Congo Basin region.

Some birds winter in milder regions of southern and western Europe, while others migrate to the Sahel, Nile basin and Great Lakes region in Africa, or to Arabia, the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar.

Rüppell's Vulture ( Gyps rueppellii ) is a large vulture that occurs throughout the Sahel region of central Africa.

The northern region of Ghana lies in the sparsely vegetated Sudan and Sahel grassland belts.

In West Africa, Islamic merchants played a vital role in the Western Sahel region since the Kingdom of Ghana.

Their ultimate goal was to have an uninterrupted link between the Niger River and the Nile, hence controlling all trade to and from the Sahel region, by virtue of their existing control over the caravan routes through the Sahara.

The gum exported came from the band of acacia trees which once covered much of the Sahel region: the southern littoral of the Sahara Desert running from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

The AOF included all of the Senegal River valley, most of the Niger River valley, and most of the West African Sahel region.

The Sahel in the north typically receives less than 600 millimeters ( 23. 6 in ) of rainfall per year and has high temperatures, 5 – 47 degrees Celsius ( 41 – 116. 6 ° F ).

* Northernmost point – unnamed location on the border with Benin immediately south of the Burkina Faso-Benin-Niger tripoint, Sahel Region

* Northern-most point – the point at which the border with Mali enters the Bagoé river, Savanes Region, the Sahel.

The elephant – or rather its statuette in the Natural History Museum – was made holotype of Richard Lydekker's proposed subspecies ( Loxodonta africana rothschildi ) for the large elephants of the eastern Sahel.

As the surrounding landscape is a large swathe of dry Sahel across Africa the swamp is also a haven for migrating animals, especially antelopes such as the endangered Nile Lechwe, Tiang, Reedbuck, and the world's largest population of White-eared Kob, estimated at around 1. 2 million – animal populations comparable to Tanzania's better-known Serengeti National Park.

The terrain is flat and the ecology is typical of the Sahel – arid grassland with occasional shrubbery.

The main ethno-linguistic divisions are Afro-Asiatic ( North Africa, Horn of Africa ), Niger – Congo ( including speakers from the Bantu branch ) in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, Nilo-Saharan in parts of the Sahara and the Sahel and parts of Eastern Africa, and Khoisan ( indigenous minorities of Southern Africa ).

Most of the 35, 100 km² of land is classified as " Sahel ", though the northern parts head toward desert, and the very southern edges along the border with Nigeria get almost 600 mm a year in average rainfall, with some areas receiving as much as 650 – 700 mm in better years.

Based on Senegal river cycles, precipitation cycles of various El Sahel stations which are related to Solar ( 89 – 120 years ) Wolf-Gleissberg cycles, and on relations to Nile floods and Equatorial lake levels, Yousef and Ghilly in 2000 anticipated that there is a considerable probability that drought will occur El Sahel Zone in 2005 ± 4 years.

The semiarid sahelian zone, or Sahel, forms a belt about wide that runs from Lac and Chari-Baguirmi prefectures eastward through Guéra, Ouaddaï, and northern Salamat prefectures to the Sudanese frontier.

The Sahel is from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, in a belt that varies from several hundred to a thousand kilometers ( 620 miles ) in width, covering an area of.

Immediately south of the Sahara lies the Sahel belt, a transitional zone of semi-arid short grassland and Acacia savanna.

The Abyssinian Roller, Coracias abyssinicus, is a member of the roller family of birds which breeds across tropical Africa in a belt south of the Sahara, known as the Sahel.

Traditionally, the northern part of Raga County falls within the " Baggara belt ", the 1400 kilometer wide section of the central Sahel in which cattle herding Arabic speaking tribes conduct seasonal nomadic migrations.

The Sahel forms a belt up to 1, 000 km wide, spanning Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

In early twentieth century classification of African languages, Sudanic languages was a generic term for African languages spoken in the Sahel belt from Ethiopia in the east to Senegal in the west.

The savannah zone's three categories are divided into mm ' Guinean forest-savanna mosaic, made up of plains of tall grass which are interrupted by trees, the most common across the country ; Sudan savannah, similar but with shorter grasses and shorter trees ; and Sahel savannah patches of grass and sand, found in the northeast.

The striped hyena's historical range encompasses Africa north of and including the Sahel zone, eastern Africa south into Tanzania, the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East up to the Mediterranean shores, Turkey, Iraq, the Caucasus ( Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia ), Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan ( excluding the higher areas of Hindukush ) and the Indian Subcontinent.

In extreme cases, such as South Australia and the Sahel, rainfall could be diminished by up to ninety percent from present, with floras diminished to almost the same degree as in glaciated areas of Europe and North America.

When classifying vegetation in a grass, shrub and tree layer, up to 80 % of vegetation cover in the Sahel exists of grass.

The Sahel landscape of the Commune is made up of grasslands punctuated by trees, often large.

In 2004 however up to 80 % of crops were lost as a result of the infestation of locusts which affected the whole of the western Sahel.

In IPCC future scenario A2 ( CO < sub > 2 </ sub > value of ≈ 860 ppm ) Sahel rainfall could be reduced by up to 25 % by year 2100, according to climate models.