Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a large, shallow, endorheic lake in the African Sahel. It has varied in size over the centuries. 
Lake Chad shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998, but "the 2007 (satellite) image shows significant improvement over previous years". Lake Chad is economically important. It provides water to over 68 million people in the four countries surrounding it: Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria. It is on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It is the largest lake in the Chad Basin, the largest drainage basin in Africa.
Fossils of an important extinct hominid were found in the dried lakebed of Lake Chad. This was "Sahelanthropus tchadensis". From evidence at the fossil site in Chad, it is thought to have lived about seven million years ago.