Algeria

Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (Jumhuriya al-Jazairiya ad-Dimuqratiya ash-Shabiya) is a country in North Africa, the largest of the countries that make up the Maghreb region.

Algeria was controlled by the French from the early part of the 19th century until, after 8 years of fighting between French forces and nationalists led by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), independance was conceded by France.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been in office since April 1999, and was re-elected in 2009 after the government had ammended the constitution to remove restrictions on presidential term limits.

Geography

Algeria is the second largest country in Africa, and the eleventh largest country in the world. It is bordered to the Noth by the Mediterranean Sea, to the East by Tunisia and Libya, to the south by Niger and Mali, and to the west by Mauritania and Morocco. It has almost 1000km of coastline and has an area of 2,381,741sq km.

The fertile lands of Algeria are situated to the North, along the coast. To the south is the forested mountainous region, rising to over 2000m, and then the Sahara desert which covers around 85% of the country. In the extreme south the desert is interrupted by two mountain ranges, the largest rising to just over 3,000m at the summit of Mt. Tahat, Algeria's highest peak.