Chad
A Saharan crossroads anchored by a vanishing lake
Chad is a vast landlocked expanse where the Sahara grinds south into the Sahel, named for the great lake on its western edge that has shrunk dramatically over the past half-century. It is a meeting ground of worlds: Arab and Muslim in the north, Black African and Christian or animist in the south, a fault line that has fueled decades of conflict. In its remote northeast rises the Tibesti, a volcanic range topped by Emi Koussi, the highest summit in the Sahara. Oil discovered in the south has reshaped an economy long dependent on cotton and cattle.
Geography splits Chad into three broad bands. The northern third is true desert, dominated by the Tibesti Mountains where Emi Koussi reaches 3,445 meters. A central Sahelian belt of thorn scrub and seasonal grass gives way in the south to wetter savanna fed by the Chari and Logone rivers, which drain into Lake Chad. That lake, once one of Africa's largest, has contracted to a fraction of its mid-century size, a stark marker of climate stress affecting the millions who depend on it across four countries.
Home to ancient Sahelian kingdoms such as Kanem-Bornu, the region became a French colony before independence in 1960. The decades since have been marked by civil war, Libyan intervention in the disputed Aozou Strip, and long authoritarian rule, most recently under the Deby family. French and Arabic serve as official languages across a deeply diverse population. Today Chad hosts large refugee populations from neighboring Sudan and the Sahel's jihadist conflicts, while its capital, N'Djamena, sits on the banks of the Chari near the border with Cameroon.