Lake Chad Basin Commission Basin (not all of which feeds Lake Chad) includes eight countries, which, in descending area of land, included are: Chad, Niger, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Sudan, Algeria, and Libya. Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad (the four countries directly containing parts of Lake Chad and its wetlands) signed the Fort Lamy (today N'Djamena) Convention on May 22, 1964, which created the Lake Chad Basin Commission. The Central African Republic joined in 1996, and Libya joined in 2008. Sudan was admitted in July 2000, but has observer status because it has not ratified the founding convention. Algeria has not participated. The
Geography of Chad where its borders converge, Chad's average width is about 800 kilometers. Its area of 1,284,000 square kilometers is roughly equal to the combined areas of Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Chad's neighbors include Libya to the north, Niger and Nigeria to the west, Sudan to the east, Central African Republic to the south, and Cameroon to the southwest. Chad exhibits two striking geographical characteristics. First, the country is landlocked. N'Djamena, the capital, is located more than 1,100 kilometers northeast of the Atlantic Ocean; Abéché, a major city in the east, lies 2,650 kilometers from the Red Sea; and Faya-Largeau,