Bafq Desert

Bafq Desert

Bafgh

Bafq Desert

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Bafq desert, also known as Kavīr-e Dar Anjīr, is a desert near Bafq County, Yazd Province. It is located inside the main depression of Yazd desert or eastern depression of Yazd. This district is an active mining area and for this reason, there are many mining jobs for people here. The most important river in Bafgh, is the Shour River, which originates from Mahan Kerman and reaches to Kavīr-e Dar Anjīr.

Bafq desert is seventy-five-kilometer long and twenty-kilometer wide, and it covers seven hundred and fifty square kilometers. The soil in this desert consists of argillaceous minerals and salt marsh with a ratio of sixty to forty. The argillaceous mineral lands cover the south and northwest parts of this desert.

The southern springs have created a dense texture of halophyte plants in the south of this desert; meanwhile, there are no plants in the north or near the salt marsh. This is because the unbearable salinity of soil increases remarkably in this area.

It is just in the borders of the desert where some halophyte plants, such as Seidlitzia Rosmarinus and Tamarisk, can be found. Out of the desert, in the lands where the salinity of soil decreases a little, there grow many plants, such as haloxylon, milkvetch, atriplex, garden cress, ziziphora, spurges, cornflower, glaucium flavum, Iris songarica, melica persica, alhagi, acantholimon, ephedra sinica, polygonaceae, zygophyllum, pteropyrum, yellow toadflax, German chamomile, malcolmia, picris, peganum harmala, salsola, teucrium polium, and corn salads. On the sidelines of the desert there are many plant species like fig trees, mugworts, salsola soda, seidlitzia rosmarinus, thymes, halothamnus iranicus, mlkvetch, pistacia atlantica, prunus scoparia, zygophyllum, haloxylon, alhagi, peganum harmala, styphnolobium japonicum, acantholimon, and calligonum.

In addition to black-bellied sandgrouse, partridge, see-see partridge, great grey shrike, desert lark, pleske's ground jay, kestrel, cream-colored courser, there are many birds of prey or raptors, and also passerine (perching birds) which inhabit in this land.

To reach this desert, there is a road from Yazd to Bafq in the south of the desert. There is another way, an asphalt track, from Bafq to Hasanabad. It consists of a dirt road right after Hasanabad and reaches to Kharānaq. It passes on the eastern side of the desert.


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