The Most Beautiful Oases in Africa
5 places in 4 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful oases in Africa are Siwa Oasis (Egypt), Guelta d'Archei (Chad) and Lakes of Ounianga (Chad). The list covers 5 oases in 4 countries. Chad has the most, with 2. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The Sahara is the largest hot desert on Earth, and its oases exist thanks to water that fell thousands of years ago, when the region was green. Fossil groundwater rises in springs or fills depressions between dunes and rock, and around it people have planted date palms, built villages and kept caravan routes alive. Each oasis is shaped by its setting, from salt lakes in the sand to pools deep in sandstone gorges.
Siwa, in Egypt's Western Desert, is a palm-filled depression with salt lakes, the mud-brick ruins of the Shali fortress and the temple of the oracle of Amun consulted by Alexander the Great. Guelta d'Archei in the Ennedi of Chad is a pool in a narrow canyon where camel herds come to drink and a few desert crocodiles survive. The Lakes of Ounianga, also in Chad, are a chain of saline and freshwater lakes in many colours, fed by underground water. Gaberoun in Libya is a salt lake ringed by palms in the dunes of the Ubari Sand Sea. Chebika in Tunisia is a mountain oasis where a stream falls through a rocky gorge.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Siwa Oasis | Oasis | Egypt | |
| 2 | Guelta d'Archei | Oasis | Chad | |
| 3 | Lakes of Ounianga | Oasis | Chad | |
| 4 | Gaberoun | Oasis | Libya | |
| 5 | Chebika | Oasis | Tunisia |
01 Siwa Oasis
Egypt · 0.6 km from Siwa Oasis29.205° N 25.519° E
Michael Hermann · CC BY-SA 4.0 At the centre of the town stands the ruin of Shali, the old fortified settlement built on a rock outcrop out of kershef, a building material of salt and mud, with palm logs for beams. For centuries it was a warren of houses and alleys climbing five storeys above the surrounding town, until three days of heavy rain in 1926 began dissolving its walls and its people moved out. Today the melted, sculptural shapes of the ruin dominate the skyline, especially beautiful at sunset.
Did you know? Herodotus wrote of a 'fountain of the Sun' here whose water ran coldest in the heat of noon.
02 Guelta d'Archei
Chad16.904° N 21.774° E
Dario Menasce, I.N.F.N. Italy en:User:Dario Menasce · CC BY-SA 3.0 The camels are the daily rhythm of the place. Herders drive their animals down into the canyon to drink and rest, and over the centuries the dung of countless camels has stained the water dark. Yet the guelta also shelters something far older: a tiny relict population of West African crocodiles, Crocodylus suchus, one of the last surviving groups in the Sahara. Their presence is a living memory of the wetter Middle Holocene, when, as fossil remains and the rock paintings of the region show, crocodiles lived across much of what is now desert. Only a handful remain, and estimates put the colony in single figures or around ten animals.
Did you know? A comparable relict crocodile colony on Mauritania's Tagant Plateau is believed to have died out around 1996, leaving Archei among the very last in the Sahara.
03 Lakes of Ounianga
Lacs d'Ounianga
Chad18.983° N 20.667° E
- UNESCO natural beauty
Jacques Taberlet · CC BY-SA 3.0 The lakes fall into two main groups, Ounianga Kebir and Ounianga Serir, with their colours depending on chemistry and the algae living in them, ranging from deep blue and green to reddish tones. At Ounianga Kebir the water is strongly saline. Its largest lake, Yoa, covers around 3.5 square kilometres and loses a column of water about six metres deep to evaporation each year; only algae and microorganisms survive in its brine, yet the aquifer keeps it full.
Did you know? Pollen in the Lake Yoa cores, studied by Stefan Kröpelin's team from the University of Cologne, shows the Sahara became desert gradually, through scrub and grassland phases.
04 Gaberoun
Libya26.803° N 13.535° E
Qyd at English Wikipedia · Public domain The lake belongs to a cluster of more than twenty basins scattered through the dunes of the Idehan Ubari in Fezzan, fed by groundwater and concentrated by relentless evaporation until the water is several times saltier than the sea. Swimming is possible. The brine is far from empty, though: it teems with tiny brine shrimp, and that small creature shaped the human story of the oasis.
Did you know? Swimmers notice an odd temperature inversion: the surface layer is cooler than the water a foot or two below it.
05 Chebika
Tunisia34.317° N 7.933° E
Keith Roper · CC BY 2.0 Above the gorge stands the old village, built from stone and earth on the slope of Jebel en Negueb. It was abandoned in 1969, when catastrophic floods struck the region, and its residents moved to a new village nearby; the empty houses and lanes, now weathered to the colour of the mountain, survive as a ruin overlooking the palms. Its local name, Qasr el-Shams, the Palace of the Sun, is often explained by the way the ridge catches the light from dawn to dusk. The site has a long past: in Roman times it was Ad Speculum, a settlement on the road along the desert frontier of the province of Africa.
Did you know? In Tunisian Arabic, Chebika means 'little net', a name linked to the way water threads through the cascades like a mesh.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful oases in Africa?
- On our list, Siwa Oasis (Egypt) ranks first, followed by Guelta d'Archei (Chad) and Lakes of Ounianga (Chad).
- Which country has the most oases in Africa?
- In our collection, the most come from Chad (2), Egypt (1) and Libya (1).
- Why did Alexander the Great visit Siwa?
- In 331 BC he crossed the desert to consult the oracle of Amun at Siwa, then one of the most famous oracles of the ancient world. Ancient writers say he was greeted as the son of Amun.
- Are there crocodiles in the Sahara?
- Yes, a few. A small population of West African crocodiles survives in the Guelta d'Archei in Chad, a relic from the time when the Sahara was much wetter.
- Why are the Lakes of Ounianga different colours?
- The lakes have different salt and mineral content and support different algae, so they range from deep blue and green to reddish. They are listed by UNESCO for this unusual hydrological system.
- How many oases are on this list in Africa?
- The list covers 5 oases in 4 countries. Chad has the most, with 2.