Atlas Mountains

The Atlas Mountains wall off the Sahara from the sea, a system of ridges that runs about 2,500 kilometres across Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. They wring rain from Atlantic and Mediterranean air, leaving green valleys and snow-dusted summits on one side and the world's greatest desert on the other. Berber villages cling to the slopes, their flat-roofed houses the colour of the earth, and the High Atlas of Morocco rises to Toubkal, the loftiest point in North Africa.

The range was built in two great pulses, an ancient one tied to the assembly of the supercontinent Pangaea and a later uplift driven by the slow collision of Africa and Europe that is still nudging the peaks higher. Toubkal, in central Morocco, reaches about 4,167 metres and holds snow well into spring. The Atlas divides into several sub-ranges, the High, Middle, and Anti-Atlas in Morocco and the Saharan and Tell Atlas farther east, and its rivers are the lifeline of the dry plains below.

The mountains take their name from the Greek titan condemned to hold up the sky, and to ancient geographers they marked the western edge of the known world. For the indigenous Amazigh, or Berber, peoples they have long been a refuge and homeland, sustaining terraced farms, walnut groves, and herds of goats. Trans-Saharan caravans once threaded the passes, and today the High Atlas draws trekkers to Toubkal while the lower slopes remain a patchwork of ancient agricultural life.

• Morocco
  Where the Atlas Mountains meet the Atlantic and the Sahara located in
• Africa
  The world's second-largest continent and humanity's birthplace located on