Environment - current issues:
soil erosion from overgrazing and other poor farming practices;
desertification; dumping of raw sewage, petroleum refining wastes,
and other industrial effluents is leading to the pollution of rivers
and coastal waters; Mediterranean Sea, in particular, becoming
polluted from oil wastes, soil erosion, and fertilizer runoff;
inadequate supplies of potable water
Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note: second-largest country in Africa (after Sudan)
People Algeria
Population:
32,930,091 (July 2006 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 28.1% (male 4,722,076/female 4,539,713)
15-64 years: 67.1% (male 11,133,802/female 10,964,502)
65 years and over: 4.8% (male 735,444/female 834,554) (2006 est.)
Median age:
total: 24.9 years
male: 24.7 years
female: 25.1 years (2006 est.)
Population growth rate:
1.22% (2006 est.)
Birth rate:
17.14 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Death rate:
4.61 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)