The Libyan Desert, also known as the Western Desert, forms the northern and eastern part of the Sahara Desert and covers an area of approximately 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi). The desert extends approximately 1100 km from east to west, and 1,000 km from north to south, in about the shape of a rectangle. The Libyan Desert covers eastern Libya, western Egypt and northwestern Sudan. Like most of the Sahara Desert, this desert is primarily sand and hamada or stony plain. The Libyan Desert is one of the harshest parts of the bigger Sahara Desert. This is one of the sunniest and driest places on Earth; many decades may easily pass without seeing any rainfall at all and the sky is always cloudless, clear and luminous.