Houari Boumédiène (Arabic: هواري بومدين, romanized: Hawwārī Būmadyan; born Mohammed ben Brahim Boukharouba; 23 August 1927 – 27 December 1978) was an Algerian military officer and politician who was the second head of state of independent Algeria from 1965 until his death in 1978. He served as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of Algeria from 19 June 1965 until 12 December 1976 and thereafter as president of Algeria until his death.

Born in Guelma, Mohammed ben Brahim Boukharouba was educated at the Islamic Institute in Constantine. In 1955, he joined the National Liberation Front (FLN) and adopted the nom de guerre Houari Boumediene. By 1960, he had risen through the organization's ranks to become the commander of the FLN's military wing.

After the FLN's victory over the French in the Algerian War of Independence in 1962, Boumediene became the Minister of Defense in Algeria's new government. However, in June 1965, he overthrew President Ben Bella in a bloodless coup before proceeding to abolish Algeria's parliament along with its constitution and ultimately becoming the country's acting head of state. In the 1970s, Boumediene initiated a gradual restoration of parliamentarism and civil institutions in Algeria. This process ended with the adoption of the new constitution in 1976. The presidency was reinstated, and Boumediene emerged as the sole candidate in an election later that year, winning with 99.46 per cent of the votes. Subsequently, he pursued Arab socialist and Pan-Arabist policies. He was also strongly opposed to Israel and offered logistic assistance to anti-colonial movements and freedom fighters across the Arab world and Africa.

From the beginning of 1978, Boumediene appeared less and less in public. He died on December 27, 1978, after unsuccessful treatment for a rare form of blood cancer, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. His funeral was attended by two million mourners. He was succeeded as president by Chadli Bendjedid.

Not much is known about Boumédiène's early life. His place of birth variously appear as Guelma, the village of Clauzel near Guelma, or Héliopolis, and his date of birth as 16 August 1925, 23 August 1927, or in most sources as 1932. His father said in a 1965 interview that his date of birth was 23 August 1932. His birth name was Mohammed ben Brahim Boukherouba, and his father was a penniless wheat-farmer and was an Arab and strict Muslim who did not speak French. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, his family is Arabic-speaking and of Berber origins. He was educated at a Quranic school in Guelma until he was 14, then an Arabic secondary school in Constantine.

In 1952, when France was recruiting Algerians to fight in the Indochina War, Boumédiène went to Cairo, where he studied at the Al-Azhar University. It was there he first met Ahmed Ben Bella. He joined the National Liberation Front (FLN) in the Algerian War of Independence in 1955, adopting Houari Boumédiène as his nom-de-guerre (from Sidi Boumediène, the name of the patron saint of the city of Tlemcen in western Algeria, where he served as an officer during the war, and Sidi El Houari, the patron saint of nearby Oran). He reached the rank of colonel, then the highest rank in the FLN forces, and from 1960 he was chief of staff of the ALN, the FLN's military wing.

In 1973, he married Anissa el-Mansali, a lawyer.

In 1962, after a referendum, Algeria declared its independence, a move affirmed by the French government. Boumédiène and Ahmed Ben Bella overthrew the provisional government of Benyoucef Benkhedda with support from the ALN in 1962. Boumédiène headed a powerful military faction within the government and was made defence minister by the Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella, whose ascent to power he had assisted as chief of staff. Boumédiène was also appointed as Vice President of Algeria in September 1963. He grew increasingly distrustful of Ben Bella's erratic style of government and ideological puritanism, and in June 1965, Boumédiène seized power in a bloodless coup.