Location: Wilaya (region) of Algiers
Algiers-in Arabic الجزارر, Al-Jazā'ir or Al Djazāir; more
commonly called: الدزاير, Eddzayer; in Berber: led,
ledzayer-nicknamed El Bahdja ("the joyous"), El mahroussa ("the
well-kept ") or " the White ", is the capital of Algeria and is its
most populous city.
Located on the edge of the Mediterranean
Sea, the city gives its name to the wilaya of which it is the
capital. The city of Algiers is in fact made up of several communes
and has neither legal personality nor administrative structure in
its own right.
The Urban Unit of Algiers had 2,481,788
inhabitants according to the Algerian National Statistics Office
according to the last census of 2008. While the agglomeration had
about 6,727,806 inhabitants in 2010 according to the ranking of the
100 largest cities in the world by World Gazetteer and 7,796,923
inhabitants in 2015 according to Population Data, Algiers is the
largest agglomeration in the Maghreb.
Algiers was founded in
the fourth century BC, as a Phoenician counter in the Berber
country, under the name Ikosim. It was occupied by the Romans,
Vandals, Byzantines and Arabs and in the Early Middle Ages by the
Berber tribe of Beni-Mezghana. It is the Berber ruler of the Zirid
Dynasty Bologhine ibn Ziri, in the middle of the tenth century who
founded the present Algiers, under his name El-Djazaïr or Lezzayer,
still used today to designate it in Arabic and Berber. It took its
role as capital of Algeria only from the period of the regency of
Algiers in 1515. It is then one of the most important cities of the
Mediterranean Sea between the sixteenth century and the beginning of
the nineteenth century, practicing the corso, and to which the
maritime powers pay a tax for the passage of their fleet. Its role
as capital of the country was confirmed during the French
colonization where it became the seat of the Governor General of
Algeria. Algiers was the capital of free France from 1942 to 1944.
Since the independence of Algeria in 1962, which became the capital
of the Algerian state, it has housed the headquarters of the
country's political institutions in addition to playing a leading
role economically.
Basilique Notre Dame d'Afrique (Algiers)
Musee National du Moudjahid (Algiers)
Riadh el- Feth Martyrs
Tel. 021 743414
Entrance Fee: DA20, children DA15
Open: 9am- 5pm Oct- Feb, 9am- 7pm March- Sept
This museum is devoted to French colonialism in Algeria and Northern Africa. Collection of the museum is dedicated to a time period that lasts from the time of French Invasion of 1830 to final independence of the country on July 1962.
New Mosque (Djemaa el- Djedid) (Algiers)
Kasbah (Algiers)
Kasbah
Palais des Rais (Algiers)
North of Upper Town
www.palaisdesrais-bastion23.dz
Tel. 021 739570
Entrance Fee: DA20, children DA 10
Open: 10am- 12pm and 1- 4:30pm Sun- Thu, 1- 4:30pm Sat
Djemaa el- Kebir (Algiers)
rue el- Mourabitine
Bardo Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography (Algiers)
3 rue Franklin Roosevelt
Tel. 021 747641
Entrance Fee: DA20, children DA10
Open: 9am- 12pm, 1- 4:30pm Sun- Thu, 1- 4:30pm Sat
Djemaa Ketchoua (Algiers)
rue Hadj Omar Algiers
The city was founded in 944 by one of the founders
of the Berber dynasty Zirid Bologgin ibn Ziri on the site of the
ancient Phoenician settlement Ikosim, which was later renamed the
Icosium by the Romans. Under Vespasian, the inhabitants of Icosios
were given Latin law. Although the Zirids were overthrown by Roger
II of Sicily in 1148, they lost control of Algeria as early as 1014,
losing it to their fellow tribesmen Hammadids. In 1159, Almohad
established control of the city. In the 13th century, the city
passed under the control of the Sultans of Tlemcen. Being nominally
part of Tlemcen, Algeria retained significant independence.
At the beginning of 1302, the island of Penon at the entrance to the
bay of Algeria was captured by the Spaniards, resulting in increased
trade between Algeria and Spain. Nevertheless, the significance of
Algeria was insignificant until the expulsion of the Moors from
Spain, many of which found refuge in Algeria. In 1510, after the
occupation of Oran and several other cities on the coast of North
Africa, the Spaniards strengthened the island of Penon and
introduced customs duties in order to suppress the activities of
pirates.
Ottoman period
In 1516, the emir of Algeria,
Selim Teumi, invited the corsair brothers Aruj and Hayreddin
Barbarossa to expel the Spaniards from Algeria. In the same year,
Aruj Barbarossa captured the city and, after the assassination of
Selim, became the de facto ruler of the city. After his death,
control of the city passed to his brother, Hayreddin. Hayreddin
Barbarossa lost control of Algeria in 1524, but regained it in 1529
and then invited the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to take
sovereignty over the territory and annex Algeria to the Ottoman
Empire.
Algeria has become the main base of the Berber
pirates. During the Algerian expedition in October 1541, the King of
Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V intended to take over the
city, however, a significant number of his ships were damaged as a
result of the storm, and his army of 30,000 was defeated by Algerian
Pasha Hassan.
Since Algeria was on the periphery of the
economic interests of both the Ottoman Empire and Europe, and
depending on the Mediterranean Sea, which was increasingly used by
Europeans for shipping, piracy became the main area of its
economy. The result of this was the intensification of the struggle
of various states with Algerian pirates who controlled the Western
Mediterranean and whose raids reached the coast of Iceland.
In the Ottoman period, the city was surrounded on all sides, except
for the promenade, with fortress walls. Access to the city was
provided through five gates. In 1556, a citadel was erected in the
highest part of the wall. The main road that crossed the city from
north to south divided it into the Upper and Lower Towns. The upper
city (al-Gabal or 'mountain') consisted of 50 quarters in which the
Andalusians, Jews, Moors and Kabiles lived. The administrative,
military and commercial center of Algeria was the Lower City
(al-Vata or 'plains'), in which representatives of the Turkish
administration and families of other representatives of the upper
class lived.
In 1816, the city was bombarded by a British
squadron under the command of Lord Exmouth, which, with the
assistance of the Dutch military, destroyed the pirate fleet.
French period
On July 4, 1830, under the pretext of insulting
the French consul, who was hit by a local dei after the consul
announced the refusal of the French government to pay off debts to
two large Algerian merchants, the city was attacked by the French
army under General de Bourmont. The next day the city surrendered.
Algeria became the capital of the French Algeria colony.
During the colonial period, many Europeans settled in the city. By
the beginning of the 20th century, they constituted the majority of
the population of the city. In the 1930s, the architect Le Corbusier
drew up a plan for the complete reconstruction of the city. Le
Corbusier criticized the difference in living standards of people of
European and African descent. However, his plan was ignored by the
French administration.
During World War II, Algeria was the
last city liberated by the Allies during Operation Torch. It housed
the headquarters of the allied command. After the war for the
independence of Algeria, the capital of the state.
Modern period
In 1962, after a bloody struggle
for independence (the death toll is estimated at 350,000-1,500,000
people), the Republic of Algeria gained independence, and the city
became its capital. Since then, despite the immigration of the
French Algerians, the city has grown significantly. The population
of the urban agglomeration exceeded 5 million people (10% of the
country's population).