Wadi El Natrun is a valley located in Beheira Governorate, Egypt, including a town with the same name. The name refers to the presence of eight different lakes in the region that produce natron salt.

In Christian literature it is usually known as Scetis and is one of the three early Christian monastic centers located in the desert of the northwestern Nile Delta. The other two monastic centers are Nitria and Kellia. These three centers are often easily confused and sometimes referred to as a single place (such as "Nitria" or "Nitrian Desert"), but they are three separate locales, though they are geographically close together and have interrelated histories. Scetis, now called Wadi El Natrun, is best known today because it still has ancient monasteries, unlike Nitria and Kellia which have only archaeological remains.

The Nitrian Desert is sometimes used to mean the entire area region where the monasteries are located, or more specifically it could mean the immediate area around Nitria and Kellia, with the region around Wadi El Natrun sometimes called the Scetis Desert.