The word “Chad” means “great water” in the Buduma language. Chad is the “land of great water” and refers to Lake Chad.
According to COUNTRYAAH, the Republic of Chad (capital N’Djaména) is with 1,284,000 km² the fifth largest country in Africa (world rank 20). The landlocked country is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south and Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger to the west. Lake Chad, located in the west of the country, is the largest inland body of water and an important economic factor in the Sahel, which the neighboring Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger share with Chad.
Chad has a north-south extension of 1800 km, the east-west extension is about 1000 km. Located in the north of Central Africa, the interior stretches from the Sahara (desert and semi-desert) in the northern part, across the Sahel zone (thorn bush and dry savannah) to the Sudan zone (wet forest savannah) in the south. About 1/3 of the national territory can be used for agriculture, only 4% (32,000 km²) can be used for arable land and permanent crops, and only a tenth is covered by forest.
Further maps show the historical development of the country, the relief or the administrative division. The map material from reliefweb shows current developments on the humanitarian situation and the refugee problem in the east and south of the country, natural disasters, locations of emergency aid organizations and much more.
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Climate
The topography of Chad is shaped by the Chad Basin. The eastern Lake Chad basin, which dominates the center of the country, is characterized by wide plains (the deepest point is the Bodélé depression at 155 m above sea level), which are bounded in the northwest by the volcanic Tibetan massif. The highest point there is the Emi Kussi at 3,415 meters. The layered landscape of the Ouaddai and Ennedi plateaus (1259 m and 1450 m) extends to the northeast. The foothills form the Guéramassiv near Mongo in the center of the country. The southwest of Chad is characterized by the alluvial plain of the two largest rivers, Chari and Logone, and forms the most fertile part of the country. The two rivers feed Lake Chad, which is the largest inland body of water in West Africa and has no drainage.
The climate in Chad is predominantly hot and dry, with average temperatures around 28ºC. The seasons are characterized by the rainy season (June-September) with locally different precipitation, the “winter” (October-February) with its dry desert wind ” Harmattan ” and the hot period (March-May). In the south of the country there is also a short rainy season in May, the ‘mango rain’ (Pluie des mangues).
The temperatures in the north are between 4 °C and 50 °C, in the south between 10 °C and 45 °C.
In N’Djaména the annual mean is 27.8ºC and annual rainfall is around 556 mm, inAbéché at 28.7ºC and 398 mm of precipitation and in Sarh at around 27.4 °C and over 1000 mm of precipitation per year.
