The Fezzan is the great desert interior of southwestern Libya — a vast territory of sand seas, gravel plains, rocky outcrops, and occasional oases that stretches from the Libyan highlands south toward the borders with Niger and Chad. Al Qatrun is one of its southernmost settled points: a small cluster of buildings, a fuel station, a few palm groves, and then in every direction, the open desert.
The landscape around town is predominantly reg — flat gravel desert, stone-hard underfoot, broken here and there by dunes and by the low dark outcrops of exposed rock. The palm groves mark the water table, drawing from underground sources in an otherwise completely waterless environment. Standing at the edge of the palms and looking south toward the horizon is one of those simple, overwhelming desert experiences: the scale is difficult to take in. The light in the afternoon turns the gravel plains gold and picks out every stone's shadow. For travellers who have spent time in the Sahara this will be familiar; for those who haven't, Al Qatrun may be their first encounter with a desert of this completeness.