Algeria: Regions, Cities & Travel Guide

What is Algeria known for?

The largest country in Africa runs from a long Mediterranean coast in the north to the deep Sahara in the south, with mountains between. Its capital, Algiers, holds the country's busiest markets and its main port of arrival. Ancient ruins mark the land, traditional cuisine carries its kitchens, and the Maghreb setting ties Algeria to its North African neighbours.

The desert is the draw.

Where is Algeria?

Algeria is the largest country in Africa, a vast block of the Maghreb in North Africa. Its shape is simple to picture. A long Mediterranean coast runs along the north, backed by mountain ranges that catch the sea's weather, and behind them the land dries and rises before giving way to the Sahara, which fills most of the country to the south.

The coast is where the cities gather, close to the water. Algiers, the capital, sits on this northern shore, while the great desert spreads far beyond the settled belt into the heart of the continent. Algeria's borders read like a map of the western Maghreb.

Tunisia lies to the northeast and Libya to the east, while Niger sits to the southeast. To the southwest the country meets Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; Morocco closes the western side; and the Mediterranean Sea forms the whole northern edge. Few countries touch so many neighbours.

The Sahara covers the interior, a sea of sand and rock that reaches deep toward the centre of the continent, so that most Algerians live in the narrow northern strip between the mountains and the sea.

What is the history of Algeria?

Algeria's history is written across the Maghreb, the western edge of North Africa where the Mediterranean world met the Sahara. Ancient ruins still stand in the country. They mark the towns and trade routes of earlier peoples who settled the coast and the fertile northern belt, drawn by the same shore and mountains that still hold Algeria's cities.

The land between the sea and the desert has long been a crossroads, a place where routes from the Mediterranean met tracks running south into the Sahara. The modern country is young. Algeria became an independent republic in 1962, taking the formal name the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, with Algiers as its capital.

The city on the northern coast has remained the seat of the state and the country's largest centre ever since. Much of the older story survives in stone rather than record, in the ancient ruins scattered through the north and in the desert routes of the Sahara. Algeria carries both: a deep past among the ruins of the Maghreb, and a national life dated from the founding of the republic.

What is Algeria like?

Algeria's culture is North African and firmly of the Maghreb. Arabic is the language of the country, spoken across the cities of the coast and the towns of the interior alike. Daily life leans on hospitality, a tradition that visitors meet quickly and remember, and on a kitchen of traditional cuisine built from the produce of the coast, the plains, and the desert edge.

The markets are where much of this comes together. In Algiers and other coastal centres, they carry the sounds, trade, and food of the country in one place. Two ways of living sit side by side.

Along the Mediterranean, urban life gathers in Algiers and the coastal cities, tied to the sea and to the wider Maghreb. Deep in the Sahara, a different rhythm holds, shaped by the desert, its routes, and its long distances. Between them run the northern mountains and the settled belt where most of the country lives.

The threads are shared, though. Arabic, the customs of hospitality, and a table of traditional cuisine tie the coast and the desert into a single North African culture, and the ancient ruins remind Algerians of the many peoples who shaped it.

What is the climate of Algeria?

Algeria's climate splits with its geography. The Mediterranean coast in the north sees mild, wet winters and warm, dry summers, the familiar rhythm of the sea's edge. Inland, the weather hardens.

Beyond the northern mountains the land turns arid, and the Sahara that fills the south is hot and dry through most of the year, with wide swings between day and night.

How do you get to Algeria?

Most travellers reach Algeria through Algiers. The capital sits on the Mediterranean coast in the north, and it serves as the country's main point of arrival by air and sea. From there the country opens up.

Roads and rail run along the northern belt between the coastal cities, while the Sahara to the south is reached overland from the north, across long distances that set Algeria apart as the largest country in Africa.