Geography
Kufra is an elliptic shaped basin, oriented northeast-southwest. The major axis is 50 km, the minor 20 km long. It is bordered by hills which are at most 100 m high. The soil consists of red marl or sand and in the lowest parts there are salt lakes or dried salines. In the basin lie the following oases:
- Al Jawf ("Center"), the largest, situated at the northeast end of the basin, 5 km long and 2–3 km wide. It is rich with palms and gardens.
- Buma and Buema, both small and situated to the east of Al Jawf. Gerhard Rohlfs set his camp north of Buema, and since then the locality is known as "Garet-en-Nasrani" ("Field of the Christian" in Arabic). Kufra Airport is located in Buma.
- Ez-Zurgh, situated 4 km to the south of Al Jawf. It consists of a line of Palm trees. Until the Italian occupation it was inhabited only by slaves.
- Et-Tleilíb and Et-Talláb, both situated to the southwest of Al Jawf. The latter is the farthest from Al Jawf, lying 20 km away.
On the north edge of the basin there is the village of El Tag, which means crown in Arabic, which does not contain an oasis. It was founded by Sayyid Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi, the son of the founder of the Senussi order, when he moved to Kufra and is considered the holy place of Senussi.
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