Algeria comprises 2,381,741 square kilometers of land, more than four-fifths of which is desert, in northern Africa, between Morocco and Tunisia.
In terms of land area, it is the largest country on the Mediterranean Sea, the second largest on the African continent after Sudan, and the eleventh-largest country in the world.
Algeria is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea.
Its Arabic name, Al Jazair (the islands), derives from the name of the capital Algiers (Al Jazair in Arabic), after the small islands formerly found in its harbor. It has a long Mediterranean coastline.
The northern portion, an area of mountains, valleys, and plateaus between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert, forms an integral part of the section of North Africa known as the Maghreb. This area includes Morocco, Tunisia, and the northwestern portion of Libya known historically as Tripolitania.