fertile tract of land that occurs in a desert wherever a perennial supply of fresh water is available. Oases vary in size, ranging from about 1 hectare (2.5 acres) around small springs to vast areas of naturally watered or irrigated land.
Underground water sources account for most oases; their springs and wells, some of them artesian, are supplied from sandstone aquifers whose intake areas may be more than 800 km (500 miles) away, as at Al-Khārijah Oasis (Kharga) and Al-Dākhilah Oasis (Dakhla) in the Libyan Desert. Two-thirds of the total population of the Sahara are sedentary peoples living in oases and depending on irrigation; these areas have temperatures conducive to rapid vegetative growth. In all Saharan oases the date palm constitutes the main source of food, while in its shade are grown citrus fruits, figs, peaches, apricots, vegetables, and cereals such as wheat, barley, and millet.
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