It is a geographical region filling the north-eastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. The Libyan desert was explored by a number of explorers, although it was a passage for caravan trade between North Africa and the Greater Sahara Desert, as Ibn Battuta wrote about it in his writings. The term 'Libyan Desert' began to appear widely on European maps in the last decades of the 19th century, typically identified as straddling the borders of present-day Egypt and Libya. With the organization of the Italian colony of Libya in the 20th century the term "Libyan Desert" for this region became a misnomer, and the area of desert within Egypt became known as the "Western Desert". During the 1930s the Libyan desert was the scene of exploration and mapping by the Italian Army and Air Force.

Source: Libya Observer April 15, 2021 13:40 UTC