The Atlas Mountains are a mountain system located in northwest Africa, stretching about 1,500 miles (2,414 km), southwest to northeast, from the Atlantic Ocean through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia to the Gulf of Gabes in the Mediterranean Sea. Atlas is the European name for the system, named after the Greek god Atlas, whom the ancient Greeks believed lived in that location. In Arabic it is known as Djezira el-Maghreb (Island of the West), because it is an “island” of relatively fertile conditions in a desert region.
The Atlas Mountains are geologically more like European mountains than African mountains. The same global geological movements which formed the Alps and the Himalayas, as far away as the Apennines in Northern Italy and as far west as the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Spain formed the ridges of the Atlas Mountains. Most of the foldings occurred during the Jurassic period and continued into the Miocene era, but some formations are from the Paleozoic and Archeozoic period.
There are three major ranges, of which the highest is the High or Great Atlas range. It stretches across the center of Morocco, and has an average elevation of 10,000 feet (3,408 meters). Its highest peak, Djebel Toubkal in western Morocco, has an elevation of 13,661 feet (4,164 meters).
There are many Greek and Phoenician legends associated with the Atlas Mountains.
Native Berber inhabitants helped establish the Moors in Spain. Later, Muslim ships, called corsairs, ruled the sea lanes on the North African side of the Mediterranean Sea coast.
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