Touat

Touat Tuwat
Natural region
Towns in the Touat Region
Topographic map of Algeria with the location of the Touat region.
Country	Algeria
Elevation	260 m (850 ft)

Tuat or Touat (Berber language: ⵜⵓⵡⴰⵜ, Tuwat) is a natural region of desert in central Algeria that contains a string of small oases. In the past, the oases were important for caravans crossing the Sahara desert.

Tuat lies to the south of the Grand Erg Occidental, to the east of the Erg Chech and to the south east of the Tademaït Plateau. It contains a string of small oases strung out along the eastern edge of the Wadi Messaoud, a continuation of the Wadi Saoura. The oases extend over a distance of 160 km from the district of Bouda in the north to Reggane in the south. The largest town in the region is Adrar, 20 km south east of Bouda. Adrar was established by the French after their conquest in 1900 and had a population of 43,903 in 2002. Associated with each oasis are small walled villages called ksour (singular ksar or gsar). There are also some forts (kasbahs), most of which have been abandoned.

There is almost no rainfall in the region and the agriculture depends on groundwater from the Continental Intercalary (Continental Intercalaire in French), an enormous aquifer that extends for over 600,000 km², an area that includes parts of Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. The Continental Intercalary is a layer of porous sandstone deposited between the Moscovian and the Cenomanian periods. It forms the deeper of the two aquifers of the North Western Sahara Aquifer System (NWSAS). Tuat is situated at the south western boundary of the Continental Intercalary where the aquifer lies only 2–6 m below the surface.