Libya, Africa’s forth-largest country, is dominated by the Sahara. The country also does a good line in mountains, with no fewer than three mountain ranges. Until about 4000 years ago, the Libyan Sahara was a temperate paradise of vast inland lakes and forests. Northern Libya later became a playground and battleground for the great empires of antiquity while the home-grown and highly civilised Garamantes made the desert bloom in the south.

Libya is one of Africa’s most homogeneous nations: 97 per cent of its people are of Arab or Berber origin. More than 95 per cent of the population are Sunni Muslims and up to 90 per cent of Libyans live in urban centres.

Libya is one of Africa’s largest oil producers, and oil has propelled the country from grinding 1950s poverty to its current status as Africa’s richest country. Oil is what keeps the nation afloat, and amounts to a staggering 95 percent of exports.

The Libyan Sahara is the desert you thought existed only in the imagination. In the country’s south, the Ubari and Murzuk Sand Seas are daily sculpted by the wind into splendid shapes.