Algeria is a huge country - the second largest in Africa (only Sudan is bigger)and the 10th largest in the world. It has two main geo-graphical division - the Atlas Mountains in the north and the Sahara to the sought.

The Atlas mountains - several parallel ranges running east-west with valley between them - consist of three main areas: the Tell Atlas near the coast, the high plateaus, and the Saharan Atlas.

The Tell Atlas from a belt of narrow ranges, plateaus and massifs, between which are fertile lowland, including the valley of the Cheliff, Algeria's longest river, the alluvial Mitidja plain around the capital Algiers, and the Annaba plain-all of which form Algeria's chief farming regions. The Tell Atlas contain most of Algeria's people and all its larger towns-Oran, Constantine, Al Asnam (Ech-Cheliff, Orleansville), Blida, Annaba (Bône), as well as Algiers.

To the south are the high semiarid plateaus containing the Chott "ech-Chergui" and the "Chott el Hodna", large desert depressions with salt marshes. Farther south lie the Saharan Atlas mountains, which extend east of the Chott el Hodna as the Aures massif, rising to 2326m (7631 ft). A line of oases, among which Biskra is the most heavily populated, lies along the southern flanks of the Saharan Atlas.

The Sahara itself stretches for nearly 5000 km (more than 3000 miles) from the Atlantic to the red Sea, and dominate 11 African countries. In the Algerian Sahara, great dunes of sand called "ergs" rise like waves in the north and east; the rest is covered with gravel or rocks. In the south, the Hoggar massif reaches 2918 m (9573 ft) at "Mount Tahat".

The climate on the coast is similar to that of the European countries that fringe the Mediterranean to the north - hot, dry summers and cool, moist winter. Summer temperatures can climb to 32ºC (90ºF) when the hot, dry, dusty wind known as the siroco blows from the Sahara. Most of the rain falls between October and March. In the mountain, the weather is coler and affected by altitude; some of the highest peaks are snow-covered in winter. Little or no rain falls in the Sahara; temperature may reach 49ºC (120ºF) during the day but fall to 10ºC (50ºF) at night.