Mont Idoukal-n-Taghes

Where is Mont Idoukal-n-Taghes?

Mont Idoukal-n-Taghes is part of the Aïr Mountains.

You will find it in: Niger.

Summit: 17.839° N, 8.720° E

The story behind it

The summit belongs to the Bagzane, a wide plateau of dark volcanic rock that sits above the sand and gravel of the desert like a table. Wind and heat have broken the surface into blocks and dust, and the slopes look bare from far away. Yet Tuareg families live up here: where springs come out of the rock they water small gardens with onions, wheat and date palms, and their goats and camels graze between the stones. Days are hot and nights can be near freezing, and rain falls only in a few storms each year. The whole area is part of the Aïr and Ténéré reserve, one of the largest protected regions in Africa, where barbary sheep and gazelles still live. The name comes from Tamasheq, the language of the Tuareg.

Find it on the globe

Mont Idoukal-n-Taghes 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.