Sahara: Did you mean...?

In the West African desert, gathering and hauling salt is a grueling task, not left for the meek. Camel caravans still move the tablets to market. See all National Geographic videos: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/?source=4001...

The ancient and medieval Mediterranean might have been a bustling stage of ever-changing empires but, across the inhospitable barrier of the Sahara Desert, West Africans were equally busy building up and toppling down their own kingdoms and...

Peoples, cities and states have traded since antiquity but in the medieval period, things escalated so that goods travelled ever greater distances by land, river and sea. Great cities arose thanks to commerce and international trade such...

The Niger River is the most important river in West Africa, and is the third longest river in Africa after the Nile River and Congo River. Known for its distinctive "boomerang" shape, the Niger River flows from the Guinea Highlands to the...

Around 1065, the geopolitical landscape of North Africa and the western Mediterranean was marked by fragmentation, migration, and the rise of new regional powers. Older political structures were weakening, while emergent dynasties and mobile...

Salt slabs on sale at a market in Timbuktu, Mali. Salt from mines in the Sahara desert has been transported to and traded in West Africa since pre-historical times.

Boats transporting slabs of rock salt on the Niger River delta, Mopti, Mali. The salt comes from ancient mines in the Sahara desert.

Did you know that the rulers of the Ghana Empire were so rich they were known as Kings of Gold? This video is all about the rise and fall of the great Ghana Empire, once known as the land of gold. The Ghana Empire flourished in West Africa...

Located in a strange lunar landscape of great geological interest, Tassili n'Ajjer, in Algeria, has one of the most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world. More than 15,000 drawings and engravings record the climatic changes...

Founded in the 11th and 12th centuries A.D. to serve the caravans crossing the Sahara, these trading and religious centres in Mauritania became focal points of Islamic culture. They have managed to preserve an urban fabric that evolved between...