Algeria

Algeria is a big country in Africa.

In the north, it is next to the sea. In the south, there is a huge desert called the Sahara. The capital city is Algiers. It sits by the sea.

Algeria is in North Africa, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the largest country in Africa. The north, called the Tell, has mountains, plains and a mild climate, and that is where most people live.

South of the mountains begins the Sahara, the great desert, which covers more than four-fifths of the country. About 47 million people lived in Algeria in 2025. Its capital, Algiers, is a busy port city on the sea.

Algeria covers about 2,381,700 square kilometers, which makes it the largest country in Africa and the 10th largest in the world. Britannica divides it into two regions. The Tell in the north, moderated by the Mediterranean, is mostly the Atlas Mountains and holds most of the population. The south, almost entirely desert, is part of the western Sahara, which covers more than four-fifths of the country and hides rich deposits of oil and natural gas.

The World Bank estimated the population at 47,435,312 in 2025. History, language and an Islamic heritage tie Algeria to the Maghreb and the wider Arab world, while a sizable Amazigh (Berber) population keeps its own cultural traditions. The capital is Algiers, a crowded seaside city whose historic core is ringed by tall buildings.

Algiers is the biggest city in Algeria.

Its white buildings climb the hills above the sea. Oran is another big city by the sea. Constantine has bridges over a deep, rocky valley.

Algiers, the capital, climbs up hills along a bay, with white buildings looking down on the harbor. Its old quarter, the Kasbah, has narrow streets, old mosques and palaces, and is a World Heritage Site. Oran, in the west, is the country's second largest port.

Constantine, in the northeast, sits on a rocky plateau with a deep gorge almost all the way around it, so people cross into the city on bridges. Algeria also has ruined Roman towns, such as Timgad and Djemila, with stone streets, arches and columns that still stand.

Algiers stretches about 16 km along the Bay of Algiers on the slopes of the Sahel Hills, an amphitheater of white buildings above the harbor; the city had 2,364,230 people in 2008 (Britannica). Its name means "the islands" in Arabic. The Kasbah, inscribed by UNESCO in 1992, overlooks islets where a Carthaginian trading post stood in the 4th century BCE and keeps a citadel, old mosques and Ottoman-style palaces. Oran, founded in the early 10th century by Andalusian merchants, is the second largest port.

Constantine occupies a diamond-shaped rock plateau 650 m above sea level, ringed except to the southwest by the Rhumel gorge, whose cliffs are as little as 4.5 m apart; the 130-meter el-Kantara Bridge crosses it. As Cirta, it was one of the main towns of Numidia by the 3rd century BCE. In the M'Zab valley, five fortified towns built from the 10th century by the Ibadites survive as a World Heritage Site (1982).

Algeria has mountains in the north.

Rain falls there in winter. South of the mountains is the giant Sahara Desert. It has huge hills of sand called dunes. Some places get no rain for years.

Two lines of the Atlas Mountains run across the north of Algeria, the Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas, with a high plateau between them. The coast has warm, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Algiers gets most of its rain from October to March.

The Sahara begins where the Saharan Atlas ends, and there less than 100 millimeters of rain falls in a year. Its huge seas of sand dunes are called ergs. In the far south rise the Ahaggar Mountains, where Mount Tahat, about 2,900 meters high, is the tallest peak in Algeria. On the Ahaggar plateau, as many as five years can pass without rain.

The collision of the African and Eurasian plates along the Mediterranean margin produced Algeria's two regions. In the Tell, the young Tell Atlas and Saharan Atlas run roughly east to west, separated by the High Plateau with its salt-crusted lake beds (sabkhahs); Mount Chelia, 2,328 m in the Aurès, is the highest peak in the north. Only the northern Tell, along the plate boundary, has much seismic activity. The south is an ancient, flat platform of basement rock.

The Sahara proper starts south of the Saharan Atlas, where yearly rainfall drops below 100 mm. Two vast sand seas, the Great Eastern and Great Western Ergs, are separated by the M'zab rise, and the Ahaggar plateau, of black volcanic necks over pink granite, culminates in Mount Tahat, Algeria's highest peak, given as 2,918 m by Britannica and 2,908 m by France's space agency CNES. Algiers has July afternoons of about 28 °C and 760 mm of rain a year, four-fifths of it from October to March, while three years can pass without rain in the Tademaït and five on the Ahaggar. The timing and strength of the sirocco, a dry wind from the Sahara, are among the main things farming depends on.

A little fox with very big ears lives in the desert.

It is called a fennec. Monkeys called Barbary macaques live in the northern mountains. Storks and flamingos fly through Algeria too.

In the Sahara live gazelles, hyenas, jackals, gerbils, desert hares and the fennec, a small fox with ears 15 centimeters or longer. The fennec rests in its burrow during the heat of the day and comes out mostly at night to eat insects, small animals and fruit.

The northern mountains are home to Barbary macaques, wild boars, wild sheep called mouflons, and Barbary deer. Many birds, such as storks and flamingos, pass through Algeria on their long migrations. Every part of the country has a dry season, plants must survive it, and forests cover only about 2 percent of the land.

Britannica lists wild mouflons, Barbary deer, wild boars and Barbary macaques in the northern mountains, and gazelles, fennecs, hyenas, jackals, gerbils and desert hares in the Sahara. Many migratory birds, including storks and flamingos, pass through. Insects are abundant, most spectacularly in periodic massive swarms of locusts, and scorpions are common in the arid and semiarid regions.

The fennec (Fennecus zerda), with a head and body 36 to 41 cm long, a weight of about 1.5 kg and ears 15 cm or more long, is mainly nocturnal and spends the heat of the day underground. All Algerian vegetation is drought-resistant: forests of holm oak, cork oak and juniper cover only about 2 percent of the land, much of the Tell's former woodland is now maquis scrub of laurel, rosemary and thyme, and farther south esparto-grass steppe gives way to scattered desert grasses, tamarisk and acacia.

About 47 million people live in Algeria.

Many people speak Arabic. Many others speak Tamazight. Couscous with meat and vegetables is a traditional meal. Many people drink mint tea.

About 47 million people lived in Algeria in 2025, most of them in the north, near the coast. Arabic is an official language, and Tamazight, the Amazigh (Berber) language, became an official language in 2016. About one in five Algerians consider themselves Amazigh, and the French language still has a strong influence.

Couscous, small grains of semolina served with a stew of meat and vegetables, is the traditional main dish, and bread comes with almost every meal. Dates, figs, almonds and honey go into sweets, and mint tea is popular. A style of music called raï began in western Algeria.

The World Bank estimated 47,435,312 people in 2025. Britannica describes more than three-fourths of the country as ethnically Arab, though most Algerians descend from ancient Amazigh groups who mixed with peoples from the Middle East, southern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa; about one-fifth consider themselves Amazigh. The Kabyle, east of Algiers, are the largest Amazigh group, alongside the Shawia of the Aurès, the M'zabites and the Tuareg of the Ahaggar. Arabic became the official national language in 1990; Tamazight became a national language in 2002 and an official one in 2016.

Most Algerians, Arab and Amazigh, are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki rite. Almost three-fourths live in urban areas, mostly along the coast, and density falls steeply southward. Algerian cooking mixes Arab, Amazigh, Turkish and French traditions: couscous with meat and vegetable stew, unleavened breads, brik pastries, merguez sausage, and desserts of figs, dates, almonds and honey. Raï, a music style from the west, was taken to Europe and the United States by singers such as Khaled.