مصر (Miṣr)¹--part: Al Wadi² al-Jadid, Marsa Matruh; ليبيا (Libiya);³ الجزائر (al-Jazā'īr;)⁴ التونسية (al-Tūnisiyya);⁵ امغرب (al-Maghreb)⁶--part: Wad-ad-Dahah, Bu Jaydur, al-'Ayun, es-Samarah, Tangier-Tetouan, Ghabr-Chrarda-Beni Hssen, Taza-al-Hoceima-Tokunate, Rabat-Sale-Zammour-Zaer, Fes-Bouleman, Oriental, Dar el-Beida,⁷ Chaouia-Ourdigha, Tadla-Azilal, Doukkal-Abda, Meknes-Tafilalet; Presidios (España⁸); Madeira Islands (Portugal)

How is the land laid out?

Most of the land consists of a large chunk of the Sahara⁹ Desert, the world's largest expanse of dry waste. Exceptions--other than oases--are: I. the al-Jabal¹⁰ al-Akhdar highlands and nearby coast of northeast Libya; II. the Jabal Nafisah highlands and nearby coast of northwest Libya; III. The several ranges of the Atlas Mountains which start outside this area in southern Morocca and continue into Tunisia; these include--on the edge of this area--Irhil M'Goun, over 4000 meters tall, in the High Atlas; IV. The Er Rif highlands of northernmost Morocco; V. Morocco's coastal plain, northwest of the Atlas; and VI. the Draa River Valley, along the Moroccan-Algerian border at the edge of this area, south of the Atlas and within the desert's northern edge.

Some interesting features of the desert include: I. the Qattara Depression in northwest Egypt; II. the El Harga Oasis in southern Egypt; III. the Siwa Oasis in northwest Egypt; IV. the Sirte Desert which reaches the Mediterranean Sea and divides habitable Libya in two; V. the depression with its chain of salt lakes (chotts) that crosses central Tunisia and extends into Algeria behind the Atlas; VI. the Great Eastern, Great Western and Chech Ergs--sand dune systems--in Algeria; VII. the Tibesti mountains--mostly in Chad¹¹ but extending into southern Libya; and VIII. the Hogar Mountains in southern Algeria, noteworthy for olive trees that date from the last Ice Ages. Most of the desert is duller--a windy, dusty plateau of rock (hamada) and gravel (areg). It reaches the Atlantic sea in the new prefectures of Morrocco.

Who lives there?

About five in six speak Maghrebi spoken Arabic¹², and nearly everyone is a Sunni Moslem. About one on twenty speak Tamazight and another equal number Kabyle.¹³ Both are Berber languages: the first of northeast Algeria, the second mostly in northern Morocco.

For a complete list of Algerian cities over a million, and selected others, see the table of Algerian cities. An important smaller non-Algerian city is العيون (al-'uyūn or Laâyoune or Laayoune). All but one of the remaining principal cities are coastal. They are Dar el-Beida (Casablanca), in the center of Morocco's Atlantic coastal plain; Rabat, that nation's capital, smaller than, and north of, Casablanca; Fes, one of Morocco's one time capitals; Tūnis--the exception-- located along the Oued Mejerda not far from the ruins of Carthage; Ṭarābulus (Tripoli), Libya's capital, on the coast after which the city is named; and بنغازي (Banghazi Benghazi or Bengazi), on Libya's Cyrennaican coast.

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 from the Rift to the Siwa Oasis.

The Punic people's colonized cities along the seashore as did the Greeks in Libya. See Κυρήνη (Kurene or Cyrene), now the town of شحات (Shahhat), a World Heritage Site. 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.

Moors, speaking a Berber language, later moved into Morocco from the south.

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

Euopeans conquered the area by the early 20th century, but largely departed in the second half, leaving only handfuls of native French, Italian, Spanish and English speakers, but some of their languages persist in administration and international relations.

Jews settled here during the Roman Empire and increased when fleeing the Christian conquest of Spain, then left for the most part when Israel¹⁵ was founded.

Northern al-Maghreb (northern Morocco)
al-Jazā'īr; and the Western Sahara (Algeria and the Western Sahara)
al-Tūnisiyya (Tunisia)
Western Libiya (Western Libya)
Eastern Libiya and western Miṣr (Eastern Libiya and western Egypt)

Other local topics

Other broad topics

Miṣr (Egypt)
al-Maghreb (Morocco)
España (Spain)
Portugal

Footnotes

1. Egypt in Engloish.
2. Wadi or wad-ad or oued means river or gully.
3. Libya in English.
4. Algeria in English, Algerie in English.
5. Tunisia in English, Tunisie in French.
6. Morocco in English. It would translate literally as the West. Maroc in French.
7. Casablanca in English.
8. Spain in English.
9. Translates as wilderness from Arabic.
10. Translates as mountains from Arabic.
11. Tchad in French.
12. Some would consider this several languages, others would subsume it under Arabic.
13. Some say there are twice as many Kabyle speakers.
14. Alger in French.
15. Yisrael in transliterated Hebrew.