Algeria. Land and People

The northern coastal area of Algeria, called the Tell, stretches along the Mediterranean Sea. This region has the mild temperatures and moderate rainfall typical of a Mediterranean climate. The Tell extends only about 80 to 200 miles (1 30 to 320 kilometers) south of the coast, but more than 90 per cent of the Algerian people live in this narrow strip. The Tell is Algeria's heartland.

The word tell means hill in Arabic, and the region is aptly named for its gently rolling hills and coastal plains. Much of Algeria's best farmland lies in the western and central Tell. Rugged mountains make up the eastern Tell, and the Tell Atlas Mountains rise along the region's southern edge.

A massive rock formation looms above the barren landscape near the Ahaggar Mountains in south- east Algeria. The Ahaggar, together with the highland region Tassili-n-Ajjer, help make the Saharan region of Algeria a land of great scenic diversity

South of this range lie the High Plateaus, which are cooler and drier than the Tell at about 1 ,300 to 4,300 feet (400 to 1 ,300 meters) above sea level. The plateaus are home to about 7 per cent of the Algerian people.

The High Plateaus end with the Saharan Atlas Mountains. To the south lies the barren, sun-baked Sahara, the largest desert on earth. Fewer than 3 per cent of the Algerian people live in this desolate region, which covers more than 80 per cent of the country's land.

The vast Sahara actually has a variety of landscapes. Sand dunes cover much of the northern Sahara. Two huge seas of sand, called ergs, dominate this area: the Grand Erg Occidental (Great Western Erg) and the Grand Erg Oriental (Great Eastern Erg). Other parts of the Sahara include vast stretches of bare rock, boulders, and gravelly stone.

In southeast Algeria, the Ahaggar Mountains tower up to 9,573 feet (2,918 meters). Northeast of the Ahaggar, in a highland area called Tassili-n-Ajjer, needlelike rocks point to the sky, and huge, petrified sand formations rise like castles from the desert floor. To the west of the Ahaggar, an almost lifeless pebble desert stretches to the Mali border.

An Algerian farmer shelters a young goat in the folds of his burnoose – a heavy, hooded cloak. More than half of all Algerians live in rural areas, mainly raising livestock or farming small plots of land for a living

Daytime temperatures in the Sahara can soar above 120° F. (49° C). During the summer, a hot, dusty wind called the sirocco blows north across the desert and blasts the High Plateaus. The sirocco reaches as far as the Tell about 20 days of the year.

The Tell's pleasant climate and fertile farmland have drawn most of Algeria's and women have lived vastly different lives. For example, women usually wear veils in public because it is considered improper for a woman's face to be seen by a man who is not related to her. As Algeria wrestles with Western ideas, some younger and more educated women resist such practices. Some city people follow other Western customs as well, wearing Western-style clothing and eating Western foods, for example.