Algeria
Algeria (officially People's Democratic Republic of Algeria) is a country in Northern Africa, with its capital at Algiers, and is home to roughly 46.8M people.
Arabic is the official language; the currency in circulation is Algerian dinar (د.ج); people from here are called Algerian.
- »Over four-fifths of the country is Sahara. It is the largest country in Africa, a title it took from Sudan in 2011.
Algeria straddles the Tropic of Cancer.
Algeria touches seven neighbours: Libya to the east, Mali to the southwest, Mauritania to the southwest, Morocco to the west, Niger to the southeast, Tunisia to the northeast and Western Sahara to the west. Directions run from one centre to the other.
Algiers is built up a steep amphitheatre above its bay, its Ottoman-era Casbah climbing the slope in a maze of alleys too narrow for vehicles.
2,323,546 km² (897,126 sq mi), 11th largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of DR Congo.
Population 46,814,308, 33rd of 198 on file. That averages 20 per km² (52 per sq mi).
The star and crescent are Ottoman-era symbols; the green stands for Islam and the white for purity. The design was carried by the independence movement long before France left in 1962.