Bikku Bitti

Where is Bikku Bitti?

Bikku Bitti is part of the Tibesti Mountains.

You will find it in: Libya.

Summit: 22.004° N, 19.207° E

The story behind it

Bikku Bitti sits in one of the emptiest corners of the Sahara, close to the border with Chad, where roads simply stop and the nearest villages lie days of travel away. The Tibesti Mountains grew from volcanic rock, so the slopes are made of dark lava and ash that heat up like an oven by day and cool down sharply after sunset. Rain almost never falls here, yet the dry valleys, called wadis, show that water once rushed through them, and a few tough shrubs still survive in the shade of the boulders. The Toubou people know this desert better than anyone and have crossed it with camels for generations, following wells that outsiders would never find. Very few travellers have ever stood on the summit, which is one reason the mountain stayed unmapped for so long.

Find it on the globe

Bikku Bitti is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.