River · Algeria
Chelif
The Chelif is the longest river in Algeria. It rises in the dry Saharan Atlas mountains, turns north and west through a hot farming valley and reaches the Mediterranean Sea north of Mostaganem.
Picture credit: Soba 2022 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Hemza Benyoucef (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Chelif?
The river starts here: Saharan Atlas mountains in northern Algeria.
It ends in the Mediterranean Sea, north of Mostaganem.
Countries on the river: Algeria.
The story behind it
The Chelif begins on the edge of the desert, where rain is rare and the ground is stony. Its valley is one of the hottest places in Algeria: in summer the air shimmers over the fields and the river shrinks to a thin, muddy thread between wide gravel banks. When storms burst over the mountains in winter, the same channel can fill from side to side in a single night. People have learned to store what they can, so several dams hold back the water and send it through canals to orchards of oranges and fields of wheat, melons and tomatoes. Storks nest on the poplars near the villages and frogs sing after rain. The town of Chlef, named after the river, lies in the middle of the valley and has been rebuilt after earthquakes.
Questions children ask
How long is the Chelif?
The Chelif is about 725 km long. That makes it the longest river in Algeria, even though much of its water disappears in the heat.
Which country does the Chelif flow through?
The Chelif flows only through Algeria, in the north of the country. Its valley is one of Algeria's most important farming regions.
Where does the Chelif flow into the sea?
It reaches the Mediterranean Sea a little north of the port of Mostaganem. In late summer so little water arrives that the mouth is often only a shallow pool.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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