Atlantic coastal desert

The Atlantic coastal desert is the westernmost ecoregion in the Sahara of North Africa. It occupies a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast, where fog generated offshore by the cool Canary Current provides sufficient moisture to sustain a variety of lichens, succulents, and shrubs. It covers 39,900 square kilometers (15,400 square miles) in Western Sahara and Mauritania. It is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by the North Saharan steppe and woodlands, on the north by the Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets, and on the south by the Sahelian Acacia savanna.