Algeria Geography

Algeria is Africa's largest country by area, and its geography splits sharply into three bands running roughly east to west. A narrow, fertile Mediterranean coastal strip in the north holds most of the population and major cities, including Algiers and Oran.

South of the coast, the Tell Atlas and Saharan Atlas mountain ranges rise across the country, enclosing a semi-arid plateau region between them known as the High Plateaus.

South of the mountains, the Sahara Desert covers roughly four-fifths of Algeria's total area -- a landscape that ranges from the rocky plateaus and dramatic sandstone formations of Tassili n'Ajjer in the far southeast to the sweeping dune fields more commonly pictured as "the Sahara."

Algeria's highest point, Mount Tahat, rises in the Hoggar Mountains deep in the southern desert, a volcanic range far removed from the country's northern population centers.