El Djouf

El Djouf is a broad desert basin of sand and rock salt in the central Sahara, stretching across northeastern Mauritania and northwestern Mali. It stands about 320 metres above sea level. Low dunes and stony plains cover a shallow sedimentary depression broken by fault blocks, plateaus and ridges. The land looks even from a distance, but old divides separate several basins across the region. Exposed stone and thin sand mark the margins, while salt collects in the lowest ground.

Similar broad basins occur around Lake Chad and the Victoria–Kyoga lakes and along the Congo and Zambezi systems. Water and pasture are scarce. Travel depended on wells, grazing after rare rain and knowledge of routes between rock outcrops. El Djouf bordered the salt country of Taghaza, where slabs of rock salt were cut and carried south in large caravans. From the thirteenth century, Taghaza lay on routes connecting Sijilmasa with Timbuktu and the western Sahel.

By the fourteenth century, merchants and caravan leaders crossed these deserts with camels, textiles, gold and salt, while Arabic writers described the salt-built settlement at Taghaza. Traffic declined after miners moved to Taoudenni late in the sixteenth century, but the surrounding desert remained a space of wells and caravan tracks. El Djouf’s history is tied to this difficult passage between the Sahel and the Sahara rather than to cities or permanent farming.