Abstract
The Sahara is not a desert wasteland but a location of thriving historical and contemporary towns and cities. Their recent development reflects both revitalization of commerce along traditional trans-Saharan trade routes as well as state-planned interventions such as agricultural development depending of contemporary cities and routes localization. The variable successes and failures of such recent interventions shows the fragility of Saharan towns and cities to resource exploitation, but also their resilience to sustain certain types of economic activities despite external intervention. These factors result in the making of paradoxical landscapes in the today Central Sahara.