الجزائر (al-Jazā'īr¹); امغرب (al-Maghreb²), part: Wad³-ad-Dahah, Bu Jaydur, ad-'Ayun, es-Samarah; الجصهورية العربية (al-'Arabīyah al-Jsahwryah) Republic or Saharan Arab Republic

How is the land laid out?

Most of the land consists of a large chunk of the Sahara⁴ Desert, the world's largest expanse of dry waste. The exceptions--other than oases--are I. the several ranges of the Atlas Mountains, chiefly the Saharien Atlas, the Tellien Atlas and the Aurès Massif; and II. along part of the Moroccan border, the Draa River Valley, south of the Atlas and within the desert's northern edge.

Some interesting features of the desert include: I. a depression in northeast Algeria, behind the Atlas, which continues into التونسية (al-Tūnisiyya),⁵ featuring a chain of salt lakes (chotts); II. the Great Eastern, Great Western and Chech Ergs--sand dune systems; and III. the Ahaggar (Hoggar) Mountains in southern Algeria, noteworthy for olive trees that date from the last Ice Ages. It's highest part, the Atakor, is a tourist attraction;⁶ IV. a series of usually dry valleys, salt flats (sabkhas) and oases lining one of the old routes from امغرب (al-Maghreb) leading southeast into the desert's center; and V. some very large salt flats, with some parts intermittent marsh, northwest of the Ahaggar. Most of the desert is duller--a windy, dusty plateau of rock (hamada) and gravel (areg). It reaches the sea in the new prefectures of امغرب (al-Maghreb).

In the east-center the Tassili n'Ajjer mountains are honored by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, both for nature and for ancient petroglyphs.

Map

Who lives there?

This is within the part of north Africa in which speakers of Maghrebi Arabic⁷ and Sunni Moslems are the majority.

For a complete list of cities over a million, and selected others, see the table of Algerian cities. The important non-Algerian city is العيون (al-'uyūn or Laâyoune or Laayoune).

UNESCO honors three World Heritage Sites from the Islamic period: al Qal'a of Beni Hammad; the Kasbah of the city of الجزائر (al-Jazā'īr)--tourists enjoy the city generally⁶; and the M'Zab Valley.

Tourists also enjoy Tamanrasset, Wahrān, the five cities of the M'Zab Valley, Tlemsan and El Oued (the Wadi or the Gulch) for their Islamic heritage, and Qusantinah for both its Islamic and pre-Islamic heritage.⁶

The important gas field not located by a city is Hassi R'Mel in Laghouat Province.

Who was there before?

Thousands of years ago, according to Christopher Ehret, speakers of the Boreafrasian dialects of Afroasiatic moved here when the climate was wetter, giving rise to the Berber languages. These remain the principal minority languages in Algeria.

The Punic people's colonized cities along the seashore as did the Greeks in Libya. Later the Roman conquerors introduced Latin and their conquerors introduced a Germanic language. All ethnic traces of these peoples has vanished. These people introduced new religions: the Punic people worshipped gods under generic names like Baal, El or Meloch; the Greeks worshipped gods like Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite and Poseidon; the Romans initially worshipped gods like Jupiter, Juno and Apollo, and later became Christians. North African Christian had great diversity in belief and so the Roman and Byzantine Empire treated them viciously as heretics, setting the stage for a big switch.

The Arabs conquered the region by the eighth century and changed the majority language and religion.

Turks ruled the coasts loosely in the early 19th century but have left no traces.

The French conquered the area by the early 20th century, but largely departed in the second half, leaving only handfuls of native French speakers, but the language persists in administration and international relations.

Jews settled here during the Roman Empire, then left for the most part when ישראל (Yisra'el)⁸ was founded.

UNESCO honors two World Heritage Sites from the pre-Islamic period (other than the one already mentioned): Djémila and Tipaza.

Tourists also like Annaba and Sétif for their pre-Islamic culture.⁶

Ahaggar (Hoggar) Mountains, al-Jazā'īr (Algérie or Algeria)

Around the Area

north of Algeria
east, from the north of Algeria
east, from the south of Algeria
southeast and southwest of Algeria
southwest of the Chech Erg and of the Tanezrouft
south of westernmost Algeria
west of the Western Sahara
north of Western Sahara and west of westernmost Algeria
west of northern Algeria

Footnotes

1. Algérie in French; Algeria in English.
2. al-Maghreb means the west. Maroc in French; Morocco in English.
3. Wad or Wadi ranslates from Arabic as river or gulch.
4. Translates from Arabic as wilderness.
5. Tunisie in French; Tunisia in English.
6. The top ten were picked from https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-to-visit-in-algeria/, accessed February, 2017.
7. Some would consider this several languages, others would subsume it under Arabic.
8. Israel in English.