The Algerian Desert () is a

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

located in central

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

within

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

, constituting part of the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

. The desert covers more than 90% of Algeria's total area. In 2018, it was home to a population of 3,600,000 inhabitants, or 10.5% of the Algerian population. Its expansion starts from the Saharan Atlas as a stony desert, gradually changing into a sand dune desert inland. The plateau of the Tassili n'Ajjer is located in the southeast, and its outstanding collection of prehistoric rock art saw it added to the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage List World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritag ...

in 1982. Cities and towns such as Ouargla, Adrar, and particularly In Salah are among the hottest places in the Sahara. Annual average rainfall is well above in the northernmost part but the center and the southern part receive much less than .

Geography

The Sahara covers over 90% of Algerian territory. It is crossed by ergs (sand dunes), regs (stony terrain), as well as volcanic massifs in the far south. The Algerian Desert is characterized by low rainfall, recording less than 100 mm per year. However, it rarely snows and floods, sometimes reviving the

wadis Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet ( ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portions of alluvial fans and e ...

(river valleys) that have been dry since prehistoric times. The

subsoil Subsoil is the layer of soil under the topsoil on the surface of the ground. Like topsoil, it is composed of a variable mixture of small particles such as sand, silt and clay, but with a much lower percentage of organic matter and humus. The su ...

is full of water in the Albian Aquifer which extends under a large part of the Algerian Desert, a remnant of the steppe climate that the region experienced 10,000 years ago. In the north, the grass of the steppe slowly becomes rarer while the species change until it makes way for the reg. The erg, the sandy desert, covers only a fifth of the Sahara. The Grand Erg Oriental (Great Eastern Sand Sea) borders the Wadi Righ, a succession of oases that stretches along the underground wadi. The Saoura valley limits the Grand Erg Occidental to the west. Between these two large ergs is the

M'zab The M'zab, or Mzab (Mozabite language, Mozabite: ''Aghlan'', ), is a natural region of the northern Sahara Desert in Ghardaïa Province, Algeria. It is located south of Algiers and has approximately 360,000 inhabitants (2005 estimate). Geolog ...

valley cut into a plateau. The northern Algerian Desert contains several oases, as opposed to the southern Algerian Desert, that is dominated by the Hoggar massif at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters. Vast monotonous hamadas (hard rocky desert plateaus) like the Tademaït plateau between El Goléa and In Salah connect the large geographical areas of the Sahara.

References

{{Authority control Sahara -