The sedimentation regime off Northwest Africa is shaped by: (1) structur~al factors. which result in generallv low relief on land. shelf widths between 40 and more than 120 km. and av-erage sfope inclinations between 10 30' and 30; (2) land climates. which contral the delivery of terrigenous particles to the margin: (3) water movements including boundary currents and upwelling; and (4) the post- Pleistocene sea level rise. This chapter combines published and new results arising from research into the sedimentation processes off Northwest Africa. and emphasizes particularly the activities of the Kiel marine geological group during the past few years. Reviews of cruise activities and results were given in Closs et al. (1969) (Meteor cruise 8. 1967. off Morocco) . Seibold (1972) (Meteor cmise 25 . 1971. off Sahara to Central Senegal). Seibold and Hinz (1976) (Meteor cmise 39,1975 . and Valdivia cruise 10. 1975, from Morocco to South Senegal), and Waiden et al. (1974) (Meteor cmise 30, 1973, off Sierra Leone). Some of these cmises were used for pre- or post-site surveys for the Deep-Sea Drilling Project, or to add undisturbed Quaternary cores to the Glomar Challenger cores (leg 41, ] 975; Lancelot, et al .• 1978); leg 47 A, Arthur er al .• 1979; Lutze et al., 1979). We have concentrated our geological investigations on a number of standard profiles from the shelf to the upper continental rise as given in Figure 1. The manuscript was finished May 1979.