Al-Wādī al-Jadīd

Al-Wādī al-Jadīd, desert muḥāfaẓah (governorate), southwestern Egypt. It includes the entire southwestern quadrant of the country, from the Nile River valley (east) to the frontiers with Sudan (south) and Libya (west). Its total area covers approximately two-fifths of Egypt. Until 1958 the governorate was known as Al-Ṣaḥrāʾ al-Janūbiyyah, meaning “southern desert.”

For national planning purposes, the term Al-Wādī al-Jadīd includes five widely scattered clusters of oases based on artesian wells. These are Siwa (Sīwah) Oasis, Al-Baḥriyyah (Bahariya) Oasis, Al-Farāfirah (Farafra) Oasis, Al-Dākhilah (Dakhla) Oasis, and Al-Khārijah (Kharga) Oasis. Siwa and Al-Baḥrīyah are actually located in Maṭrūḥ governorate. Excluding isolated Siwa, the four eastern oases, together with Al-Fayyūm in the north, form a great desert arc. All are linked by a combined paved highway and desert track commencing at Cairo and terminating at Al-Khārijah, where it joins a road following a historic caravan route leading north to Asyūṭ. Al-Khārijah is also connected by rail to Najʿ Ḥammādī on the upper Nile west of Qinā, and another railway links Al-Baḥrīyah, where a rich iron-ore deposit is mined, to the steel plant at Ḥulwān.

The area is an almost rainless plateau of the eastern Sahara embracing the east-central sector of the Libyan Desert. It is composed mainly of Nubian sandstone, which has weathered to undulating plains, in places extensively covered with sand. Al-Wādī al-Jadīd is highest in the extreme southwest, where Mount Bābayn rises to 3,622 feet (1,104 metres). From there the plateau falls gently away to the north, to the areas of Siwa and the Qattara Depression, which is partly below sea level. In the east and north, limestone escarpments diversify the landscape. In the depressions, shallow wells tap the aquifers of the underlying Nubian sandstone. Deep-well drilling extended the cultivable land of the habitable oases considerably, but later this was found to have lowered the water table. There have been discussions about raising the water table by flooding an uninhabited depression west of Aswān with water from Lake Nasser.

Al-Khārijah, the largest of the oases within Al-Wādī al-Jadīd governorate, lies within a depression 112 feet (34 metres) above sea level and has considerable land under cultivation. Garden crops, dates, wheat, and berseem (clover, for livestock feed) are grown. Sheep and camels are raised by the oasis dwellers and by desert tribal groups. At Al-Khārijah coal has been found, and a large phosphate deposit at Abū Ṭarṭūr between Al-Dākhilah and Al-Khārijah oases is mined and the product shipped by rail from Al-Khārijah to Najʿ Ḥammādī. A tile- and shale-quarrying industry opened in the late 1970s at Al-Khārijah, and brick manufacturing was started. Al-Dākhilah Oasis is much smaller; date growing has been the traditional occupation. In the 1970s an agricultural experimental program tested new varieties of cotton and other crops, with the goal of developing varieties that could tolerate desert conditions.

At Al-Dākhilah tombs of the Old Kingdom (c. 2575–c. 2130 bce) were discovered in the 1970s by an Egyptian archaeological expedition headed by Ahmed Fakhry. Al-Khārijah has more extensive ruins. Throughout pharaonic history the oases served as places of exile or refuge for those in disfavour with the government. In Roman and Byzantine times the oases had widespread cultivation, and they became flourishing Christian settlements. Later, however, raids by desert tribal groups reduced their prosperity. The oasis dwellers were originally Libyan Tamazight-speaking peoples, mixed with immigrants from the south and with exiled Egyptians. In the Muslim period Arabs intermingled with them, and now they are Arabic speakers. The nomadic desert dwellers are from the Awlād ʿAlī tribal group. Area 145,369 square miles (376,505 square km). Pop. (2006) 187,263.