North Africa

Egypt's Nile valley produced one of the world's first states around 3100 BCE, and for three thousand years the pharaohs looked south to Nubia and east to the Levant more than west. The Maghreb — Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and western Libya — developed differently: Amazigh (Berber) kingdoms such as Numidia and Mauretania, and Phoenician ports led by Carthage, founded in the ninth century BCE near today's Tunis.

Rome joined the two halves. After destroying Carthage in 146 BCE and absorbing Egypt in 30 BCE, it ruled the whole coast for five centuries, and the grain and olive oil of Africa fed the capital. The ruins of Leptis Magna, El Jem, Dougga, Timgad, Djemila and Volubilis are the legacy. Christianity spread early: Alexandria and Carthage were among its great centres, and Augustine of Hippo was North African.

Arab armies swept west from 640 to about 710 and brought Islam and Arabic. Over the next thousand years dynasties rose from within: the Fatimids from Tunisia founded Cairo; the Almoravids and Almohads, Amazigh movements from the Moroccan south, ruled from Marrakech over much of Spain; the Mamluks built medieval Cairo. From the 16th century the Ottomans ruled Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, while Morocco stayed independent under its own sultans.

European colonisation came in stages: France took Algeria from 1830, Tunisia in 1881 and most of Morocco in 1912; Britain occupied Egypt in 1882; Italy seized Libya in 1911; Spain held northern Morocco and the Western Sahara. Independence followed between 1922 (Egypt, formally) and 1962 (Algeria, after a war of eight years). Unresolved pieces remain: Western Sahara's status is disputed since Spain left in 1975, and Spain still holds Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast.

The 2011 uprisings began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt and Libya. Tunisia built a democracy that has since concentrated power in the presidency; Egypt returned to military-backed rule; Libya split into rival governments. Sudan's 2019 revolution ended in a coup and, from 2023, war. Morocco and Algeria, the two largest Maghreb states, remain rivals with a closed border.

The Amazigh are the indigenous people of the Maghreb and the Sahara, from the Siwa oasis in Egypt to the Canary Islands, where their Guanche relatives lived. Most North Africans west of Egypt have Amazigh ancestry, but language shifted to Arabic over centuries. Tamazight languages are strongest in Morocco (Tachelhit, Central Atlas Tamazight, Tarifit), Algeria (Kabyle, Chaoui, Mozabite) and among the Tuareg of the central Sahara; Morocco and Algeria now recognise them as official, and the Tifinagh script appears on public signs.

Spoken Arabic differs sharply from east to west. Egyptian Arabic, spread by cinema and TV, is understood across the Arab world; the Maghrebi dialects — Moroccan Darija, Algerian Darja, Tunisian — are hard for Egyptians to follow and borrow heavily from Tamazight, French and Spanish. Hassaniya is spoken in Western Sahara and Mauritania. Formal written Arabic is shared everywhere.

European languages remain in use. French dominates business, universities and signs in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia; Spanish lingers in northern Morocco and Western Sahara; English is strongest in Egypt and the tourist trade. Nubians in southern Egypt and northern Sudan, Copts in Egypt, and the Jewish communities that once lived in every Maghreb city — now small, except for continuing heritage in Morocco and Djerba — add further layers.

North Africa is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. The Maghreb follows the Maliki school of law; Egypt's al-Azhar in Cairo is the most influential centre of Sunni learning in the world. Sufism — brotherhoods, saints' shrines (zawiyas) and annual festivals (moussems or mulids) — is woven into popular religion, and Ibadi Muslims keep a distinct tradition in the M'zab valley and on Djerba.

Egypt has the largest Christian community in the Middle East, the Coptic Orthodox Church, perhaps a tenth of the population. Elsewhere Christians are small minorities, largely foreigners and migrants. Visiting rules for mosques differ: Egypt and Tunisia admit non-Muslims to many historic mosques outside prayer times; Morocco and Algeria mostly do not, with Casablanca's Hassan II Mosque and Algiers' Great Mosque as notable exceptions for tours.

The Islamic lunar calendar sets the rhythm of the year and moves about eleven days earlier each year. Ramadan slows daytime and turns evenings into the busiest hours; Eid al-Fitr at its end and Eid al-Adha about ten weeks later are the biggest travel peaks, when trains, buses and flights fill with families going home. Fridays are the weekly day of prayer; Algeria and Egypt's offices also close on Saturdays, Morocco and Tunisia follow a Monday-to-Friday week.

The subregion is framed by the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Red Sea, but most of it is the Sahara, the largest hot desert on earth. Only a strip in the north gets reliable rain, thanks to the Atlas mountains, which run from Morocco's Atlantic coast into Tunisia and catch Atlantic storms; Toubkal (4,167 m) is the highest peak. The Rif, the Kabylie and the Jebel Akhdar of Libya are other green islands.

Egypt is a special case: almost no rain falls, and the country lives on the Nile, which brings water from Ethiopia and the East African lakes. The Aswan High Dam ended the annual flood in 1970; Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam upstream, inaugurated in 2025, is now a major regional dispute. Libya pumps fossil groundwater from under the desert through the Great Man-Made River.

The Sahara is not only sand. Sand seas (ergs) such as Erg Chebbi, the Grand Erg Oriental and the Grand Erg Occidental are the famous images, but most of the desert is gravel plain (reg) and rock plateau (hamada), with volcanic mountains in the Hoggar and sandstone plateaux in the Tassili n'Ajjer. Its rock art records a green Sahara of lakes and grassland thousands of years ago. Drought, heatwaves and flash floods — Morocco's six dry years to 2024, Libya's Derna flood in 2023 — are the climate risks now.

Overland travel across North Africa was once a classic route; today it is broken. The Morocco–Algeria border has been closed since 1994, and the two states cut diplomatic ties in 2021, largely over Western Sahara. Libya has been divided since 2014 and is under advice against travel, which cuts the coast road between Tunisia and Egypt. Sudan's war since 2023 closed the Nile route south from Egypt. The Sahel borders to the south — Mali, Niger, Chad — are under 'against all travel' advice.

What remains is a set of air links and a few land crossings. Tunisia–Algeria posts are open to visitors with an Algerian visa, and the Atlantic road from Morocco through Western Sahara to Mauritania via Guerguerat is the one working route into West Africa. Ferries connect Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia with Spain, France and Italy, and flights link Casablanca, Tunis, Algiers and Cairo several times a day.

Entry rules differ as much as borders. Morocco and Tunisia are visa-free for most Western passports; Egypt sells visas online and at the airport; Algeria requires planning, though it has opened a visa on arrival for Sahara tours. Currency adds another layer: Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian money is closed and must be obtained inside the country. The practical rule is to treat each country as its own trip, then connect two by air.