Algeria: a country study
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| Algeria : a country study |
Excerpt:
Size: 2,381,741 square kilometres, more than four-fifths desert.
Topography: Sharp contrast between the relatively fertile, mountainous, topographically fragmented north and vast expanse of Sahara in the south; northern Algeria is dominated by parallel ranges of the Saharan Atlas mountain system; no navigable rivers.
Climate: Mediterranean climate in coastal lowlands and mountain valleys; mild winters and moderate rainfall. Average temperatures and precipitation are lower in the intermountain Hauts Plateaux. Hot and arid in the desert; little seasonal change in most of the country but considerable diurnal variation in temperature.
Society
Population: Estimated at 27.4 million in 1993, increasing at an annual rate of 2.8 per cent and expected to reach 32.5 million by 2000. The majority of the population lives in predominantly urban coastal lowlands and adjacent mountain valleys, with population density dropping sharply toward the interior; desert regions are uninhabited except for isolated nomadic and sedentary communities. High urbanization rate of 5.6 per cent annually, resulting from natural population growth and internal migration.
Ethnic Groups: The population is a mixture of Arab and indigenous Berber, largely integrated with little or no social stratification along racial or ethnic lines; several other ethnic groups present in small numbers. Arabs constitute about 80 per cent of the total.
Languages: Arabic official language and is spoken by the vast majority; French is widely spoken; bilingualism and trilingualism are common. Berber is spoken in a few isolated Saharan communities and in Tell Hill villages.
Religion: Islam official state religion; observance of Sunni (see Glossary) Islam is nearly universal. Unofficial militant Islam gaining strength and challenging Western practices in legal and political systems. Non-Muslim minorities include about 45,000
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