Geography - Senegal

Most of Senegal is flat and composed of gently steppe or savanna grassland; there is forest only in the southwest, in the Casamance region, a broad strip of land located between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. To the north lies the small Lompoul desert with impressive sand dunes, the westernmost fringe of a much bigger African ensemble, the Sahel desert. Nearly everywhere the land is only slightly above sea level. In the southeast, however, foothills of Guinea's Fouta Djallon highlands reach elevations of 500 m. The coastline, some 480 km long, varies from wide, sandy beaches north of Cape Verde with some rocky areas to a maze of plain, marshy islands and meandering streams in the south, called bolongs. These salted estuaries are coated with mangrove and totally disappear when the tide goes up.