Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Algiers, Algeria metro area from 1950 to 2025.

In 2023, Algiers was the city with the largest population in Algeria, with nearly 1.98 million inhabitants. The cities of Boumerdès and Oran followed with around 786,000 and 646,000 people, respectively. Most of the population is concentrated in the cities With an area of over 2.48 million square kilometers, Algeria is the largest country in Africa. Since the territory is predominantly desert, most of the population lives in the coastal areas by the Mediterranean Sea. This explains why the population density remains relatively low at around 18.6 inhabitants per square kilometer, although it is constantly increasing. In addition, due to internal migration from rural areas, as well as population growth, Algerian cities are becoming more populous and the urbanization rate in the country is increasing annually. In 2022, around 75 percent of the population lived in urban areas. Algeria’s population continues to grow Algeria ranks among the most populous countries in Africa, counting nearly 46 million inhabitants as of 2023. The total population has been increasing constantly and registered a growth rate of 1.63 percent in 2022. In the coming years, the population is forecast to reach around 49.6 million by 2029. The relatively high fertility rate, together with the rising life expectancy and declining mortality, would drive population growth in the country.

In 1800, the population of modern day Algeria was estimated to be around 2.5 million people, and by the turn of the twentieth century it had almost doubled to five million. In the first three decades of the nineteenth century, Algeria was a semi-autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, however an invasion by France in 1830 was the beginning of 130 years of French rule, and the development of Algeria's modern borders by 1875 (although northern Algeria was treated as an extension of the French metropole, with elected representatives in the Assembly). Although the rest of the century saw both medicinal and economic progress, French rule also dismantled traditional Algerian political and societal structures, as well as the oppression of Islam, particularly in rural areas. Algeria in the early 1900s The first few decades of the twentieth century saw increasing Algerian and Islamic influence in local government. Throughout both World Wars, Algerian soldiers played an integral part in the French military, and were responsible for Algeria's liberation from Nazi Germany, as well as decisive campaigns in Italy and France. Although Algerian troops often made up the first wave of soldiers to go into battle, they did not receive the same treatment or pay as their French counterparts, and Algerian veterans did not receive the same rights as French veterans until 2017. As Europe's control over its colonies weakened in the mid-1900s, independence movements in countries such as Algeria gained momentum, and the Algerian War of Independence was one of the most violent and arduous during this time. Although it began as guerilla warfare in 1952, a series of massacres and reprisals led to all-out war in 1955, between the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the French-Algerian government. Up to one million Algerian's lost their lives in the war, and approximately twenty percent of the Muslim population became refugees. The war ended in March 1962, through the Evian Accords, and Algeria's independence was acknowledged on July 3, 1962. Independent Algeria In the aftermath of the war, there was a mass exodus of ethnic Europeans, as well as the systematic genocide of thousands of pro-French Algerians who remained in the country. Much of Algeria's agriculture had been destroyed, it's economy was left without structure as the majority of those in positions of power returned to Europe, and seventy percent of the workforce was unemployed. Relative peace followed and the country slowly modernized over the next three decades, however military rule failed to sufficiently stabilize the country, and the government's attempts to suppress Islam's influence in politics eventually led to a civil war in 1992. The civil war involved different factions with Islamic and pro-government agendas, and was very regionalized. The high number of massacres eventually led to splits within all paramilitary factions, which the government then capitalized on to re-establish control, and the war effectively ended in 2002. Since then, the military's control over Algerian politics has gradually decreased, and Algeria has become more peaceful and democratic (however they have not had an elected President since April 2019). Increased stability has also allowed the population to grow exponentially, and today it is almost 44 million people, double what it was in the mid-1980s.

In 2022, the total population in the city of Algiers in Algeria reached a high of over 2.85 million inhabitants. By the year 2027, the number of inhabitants is estimated to grow further and reach 3.11 million, thus growing by one million compared to 2000.

In 2023, people aged 25-64 years in Algeria were approximately 22.3 million and constituted the largest demographic group in the country. Instead, the lowest share of the population was represented by adults aged 65 years and older. From 2010 onwards, the total population of Algeria grew year by year, exceeding 45.9 million people in 2023. The number of children aged 0-14 years increased in the last decade, while there has been a drop in the young population aged 15-24 years.

In 2021, the total number of births in Algeria amounted to around 951,000. The number of newborns in the country decreased compared to the previous year, after remaining above one million each year from 2014 to 2019. As of 2020, the province of Algiers registered the largest number of births in Algeria, over 92,000.