How big are the Erg Chebbi dunes really?

Erg Chebbi is the dune sea most people picture when they think of the Moroccan Sahara, and the scale is real. The highest crests reach roughly 150 metres above the flat plain they sit on — that is about the height of a 40-storey tower built entirely of sand. Standing at the bottom looking up, or climbing one, the size lands hard; photos genuinely do not convey how much effort it takes to walk to the top of a big one.

The whole erg is a defined "island" of sand surrounded by stony desert, which is part of what makes it so striking. It runs about 22 kilometres from north to south and is somewhere between 5 and 10 kilometres wide. So while it feels endless when you are deep inside it, it is actually a contained, walkable dune field — you can be on the highest ridge with the green palmery and the village visible on one side and nothing but sand on the other.

Honesty matters here, because there is a common misconception. Erg Chebbi is not the largest dune field in the Sahara, or even in Morocco — Erg Chigaga, further southwest near M'hamid, is bigger and wilder and far less developed. What Erg Chebbi has going for it is the combination of genuinely tall, photogenic dunes and easy access: it is the most reachable big-dune Sahara experience in the country, right beside Merzouga.

For context against the rest of the desert, the truly giant dunes elsewhere in the Sahara — places like Algeria's Erg system or Namibia far to the south — can top 300 metres or more, so Erg Chebbi is mid-sized on a global scale. But do not let that undersell it. At 150 metres these are serious, beautiful, classic dunes, and standing on the highest one at sunrise watching the light run across the whole sea of sand, "mid-sized" is the last thing on your mind.