Dune 45
Interesting facts
- Star dunes form where winds blow from several directions; here westerly coastal winds meet easterly winds from the interior, raising arms around a central peak.
- The Namib has been arid or semi-arid for perhaps 55 to 80 million years, which may make it the oldest desert on Earth.
- Namib dune sands grow steadily redder the farther inland they lie, as iron-oxide coatings build up on the grains.
- The dune belongs to the Namib Sand Sea, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.
- The name Sossusvlei mixes Afrikaans 'vlei', a marsh, with a Nama word usually translated as 'dead end', fitting a river that never reaches the sea.
- Nearby Big Daddy, at about 325 metres, is among the highest dunes of the area, and many neighbours of Dune 45 exceed 200 metres.
- The Tsauchab River that runs past the dune is dry most of the time, and several years can pass between one flood and the next.
Why it is worth it
Among the towering dunes of Sossusvlei, one has become the image of the Namib Desert: Dune 45, a star dune more than 170 metres high, named simply for the marker on the park road beside which it stands, 45 kilometres from the Sesriem gate. Its sand is some five million years old, washed out of the Kalahari by the Orange River, carried up the Atlantic coast and blown inland over ages. Iron oxide gives these older dunes their deep orange-red: the longer the grains have been exposed, the redder the colour.
What makes Dune 45 so photographed is its shape and its setting. A sharp, curving crest divides it into one face in sunlight and one in shadow, and early and late in the day the contrast between blazing orange and near-black is extreme. Being right beside the road, it is also one of the dunes most often climbed by visitors to Sossusvlei.
The dune lies within the Namib-Naukluft National Park, on the approach to Sossusvlei, the white clay pan where the ephemeral Tsauchab River ends among dunes over 200 metres high, and the nearby Deadvlei. Life here depends heavily on the fog that rolls in from the Atlantic in the mornings; oryx, springbok and ostriches cross the plains, and small endemic creatures such as the Namib Desert beetle harvest water from the mist.
Getting there
The dune stands beside the road from Sesriem to Sossusvlei, 45 km inside the Sesriem gate of the Namib-Naukluft National Park; lodges and campsites cluster around Sesriem. The nearest town, Lüderitz, is over 200 km away in a straight line, and Walvis Bay International Airport (WVB) about 210 km. Most visitors come by car or on organised tours and stay near Sesriem.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Deadvlei 18.1 km · salt-flat
- Namib-Naukluft National Park 23.4 km · national-park
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Dune 45 is a star dune in the Sossusvlei area of the Namib Desert in Namibia. Its name comes from the fact that it is at the 45th kilometre of the road that connects the Sesriem gate and Sossusvlei. Standing over 170 m, it is composed of 5-million-year-old sand that is detritus accumulated by the Orange River from the Kalahari Desert and then blown here.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
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