Azawagh

The Azawagh (alias Azaouagh or Azawak) is a dry basin covering what is today northwestern Niger, as well as parts of northeastern Mali and southern Algeria. The Azawagh is mainly made up of Sahelian and Saharan flatlands and has a population that is predominantly Tuareg and Arab, with significant Bouzou and Wodaabe minorities and a recent influx of Hausa and Zarma.

The Tuareg word azawaɣ means "savannah".Azawad, a term used for the portion of northern Mali claimed by the Tuareg rebel movement National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, is believed to be an Arabic corruption of "Azawagh".

The Azawagh refers to the dry structural basin, which once carried a northern tributary of the Niger river, the Azawagh river, known as Dallol Bosso further south. The river, which ran some 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) in prehistoric times, dried up after the Neolithic Subpluvial and created a basin of some 420,000 square kilometres (160,000 sq mi). Its valley, which geologists call the Iullemmeden Basin, is bordered by the Hoggar Mountains and their foothills in the north, the Aïr Mountains in the east, and the Adrar des Ifoghas in the west. The bedrock of the region is Cretaceous/Paleocene limestone and clay, which was cut by erosion and covered by aeolian sand in the .

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