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Despite the importance of the Sahara, the region isn’t exclusively desert. The Niger, a strangely-shaped river, does not flow in a relatively straight line like the Nile or the Mississippi. Rather, it curves and changes direction. The Niger starts in present-day Guinea and flows northeast into Mali, where it bends and begins to flow southwest through Niger and Nigeria, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The area in Mali just before the Niger River bends is called the Inland Delta, an area of swamps and marshes surrounded by desert. In the past, the Niger River would flood the Inland Delta and leave behind rich silt, providing fishing, water to grow crops, and land for animals to graze, much like the Nile in Egypt. Even today, as the Sahara grows and the region becomes drier, the Inland Delta remains wet and fertile.