Algeria

Algeria is mostly Sahara. Behind a narrow Mediterranean coast the Tell Atlas and the Saharan Atlas enclose a band of high steppe, and beyond them the desert runs deep into the continent, with sand seas such as the Grand Erg Oriental and the volcanic Hoggar Mountains, where Tuareg herders cross plateaus of black rock. Oases such as Ghardaïa in the M’zab valley live from date palms and old irrigation channels. The coast has mild, wet winters; the south is among the driest land anywhere.

Rock paintings in the Tassili n’Ajjer record a green Sahara of giraffes and cattle herders thousands of years ago. Berber kingdoms such as Numidia faced Carthage and Rome, whose towns at Timgad and Djémila survive as ruins. Islam arrived with Arab armies in the seventh century; centuries later Algiers became a base of the Ottoman regency and its corsairs. France invaded in 1830 and annexed the territory, settling a large European population, and the war of 1954–62 ended with independence in July 1962.

Raï, the music of Oran’s clubs and weddings, carried Algerian voices across the Mediterranean, and Kabylie keeps its own Amazigh language, songs and silver jewellery. Couscous, which Algeria shares with its Maghreb neighbours on UNESCO’s heritage list, is the Friday family meal. Oil and gas from Hassi Messaoud and Hassi R’Mel earn most of the country’s export income, and the oases grow Deglet Nour dates.