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Algeria

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Algiers, on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria.
The modern city of Algiers lies near the Mediterranean coast of Algeria, while the older city is on a steep hill crowned by the Casbah, or Citadel. This view is of a typical Casbah stairway.
Algiers, Algeria, rooftop view of the Mediterranean.
The Issaouane Erg (sand sea) is located in eastern Algeria. Ergs are vast areas of moving sand with little to no vegetation cover. The most common landforms in the image are star dunes and barchan (or crescent) dunes. Star dunes are formed when sand is transported from variable wind directions; barchan dunes form in a single dominant wind. Occasional precipitation fills basins formed by the dunes, and as the water evaporates, salt deposits are left behind, which appear as bluish-white areas. Image courtesy of NASA.
What look like pale yellow paint streaks slashing through a mosaic of mottled colors are ridges of wind-blown sand that make up Erg Iguidi, an area of ever-shifting sand dunes extending from Algeria into Mauritania. Erg Iguidi is one of several Saharan ergs, or sand seas, where individual dunes often surpass 500 m -- nearly a third of a mile -- in both width and height. The center and upper-right of the enhanced satellite image is black sandstone rock. The light blue and white areas are chalky deposits and salt crusts left behind after water evaporated. Image courtesy of USGS.
The Sahara Desert covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, and Tunisia, with an area measuring approximately 9,200,000 sq km (3,600,000 sq mi). It is the largest hot desert in the world and the world’s third-largest desert, after Antarctica and the Arctic. The name "Sahara" comes from the Arabic word "sahra," meaning "desert.”
The oasis ksar (Amazigh village) of Beni Abbes, Algeria. The site was first inhabited in the 12th century by a tribe from Mauritania. The town today has an old part made up of semi-attached houses, granaries, mosques, baths, ovens, and shops, and a new part with a research center composed of a museum, zoo, and botanical garden. The old part has been largely uninhabited for decades, but enough remains to give a good representation of traditional desert architecture.
Mountains of sand loom over the oasis village of Taghit, Algeria, in the Sahara.
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