Algiers

Algiers is the capital and largest city of Algeria and the second in North Africa behind Casablanca in Morocco. According to the 1998 census the population of the city proper was 1,519,570, for the urban area was 2,135,630, for the metropolitan area 3,518,083, and for Algiers Province as a whole 5,723,749 (2006).

Nicknamed El-Bahdja or Alger la Blanche ("Algiers the White") for the glistening white of its buildings as seen rising up from the sea, it is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. The city name is derived from the Arabic word al-jazā’ir, which translates as the islands, referring to the four islands which lay off the city's coast until becoming part of the mainland in 1525. Al-jazā’ir is itself a truncated form of the city's older name jazā’ir banī mazghannā, "the islands of (the tribe) Bani Mazghanna," used by early medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi. Algiers is the only Algerian city with an English name different from its French name.

The modern part of the city is built on the level ground by the seashore and the old part, the ancient city of the deys, climbs the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the casbah or citadel, 400 feet (121.9 m) above the sea. The casbah and the two quays form a triangle.

A Phoenician commercial outpost called Ikosim, later developed into a small Roman town called Icosium, existed on what is now the marine quarter of the city. The rue de la Marine follows the lines of a Roman street. Roman cemeteries existed near Bab-el-Oued and Bab Azoun. The city was given Latin rights by Vespasian. The bishops of Icosium are mentioned as late as the 5th century.

The present city was founded in 944 by Buluggin ibn Ziri, the founder of the Berber Zirid-Senhaja dynasty, which was overthrown by Roger II of Sicily in 1148. The Zirids had before that date lost Algiers, which in 1159 was occupied by the Almohades, and in the 13th century came under the dominion of the Abd-el-Wadid sultans of Tlemcen.

Nominally part of the sultanate of Tlemcen, Algiers had a large measure of independence under amirs of its own, Oran being the chief seaport of the Abd-el-Wahid. The islet in front of the harbour, subsequently known as the Penon, had been occupied by the Spaniards as early as 1302. Thereafter, a considerable trade grew up between Algiers and Spain.

Algiers, however, continued to be of comparatively little importance until after the expulsion from Spain of the Moors, many of whom sought asylum in the city. In 1510, following their occupation of Oran and other towns on the coast of Africa, the Spaniards fortified the Penon. In 1516, the amir of Algiers, Selim b. Teumi, invited the corsair brothers Aruj and Khair ad-Din Barbarossa to expel the Spaniards. Arouj came to Algiers, caused Selim to be assassinated, and seized the town. Khair ad-Din, succeeding Arouj after the latter was killed in battle against the Spaniards at Tlemcen, was the founder of the pashaluk, afterwards beylik, of Algeria after formally inviting the Sultan to accept sovereignty over the territory and to annex Algiers to the Ottoman Empire.

Algiers from this time became the chief seat of the Barbary pirates. In October 1541, the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sought to capture the city, but a storm destroyed a great number of his ships, and his army of some 30,000, chiefly Spaniards, was defeated by the Algerians under their Pasha, Hassan. From the 17th century, Algiers, by then only formally part of the Ottoman Empire but essentially free of Ottoman control, sited on the periphery of both the Ottoman and European economic spheres, and depending for its existence on a Mediterranean that was increasingly controlled by European shipping, backed by European navies, turned to piracy and ransoming. Repeated attempts were made by various nations to subdue the pirates that disturbed shipping in the western Mediterranean and engaged in slave raids as far north as Cornwall. The United States fought two wars (the First and Second Barbary Wars) over Algiers' attacks on shipping.

In 1816, the city was bombarded by a British squadron under Lord Exmouth (a descendant of Thomas Pellew, taken in an Algerian slave raid in 1715), assisted by Dutch men-of-war, and the corsair fleet burned. The history of Algiers from 1830 to 1962 is bound to the larger history of Algeria and its relationship to France. On July 4, 1827, on the pretext of an affront to the French consul — whom the dey had hit with a fly-whisk when he said the French government was not prepared to pay its large outstanding debts to two Algerian Jewish merchants — a French army under General de Bourmont attacked the city, which capitulated the following day. Algiers became a French colony.

In 1962, after a bloody independence struggle in which up to 1 and half million Algerians died at the hands of the French Army and the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale, Algeria finally gained its independence, with Algiers as its capital. Since then, despite losing its entire European or pied-noir population, the city has expanded massively. It now has about 3 million inhabitants, or 10 percent of Algeria's population — and its suburbs now cover most of the surrounding Metidja plain.

Monuments

• Notre Dame d'Afrique: accessible by one cable car, is one of its most outstanding monuments, located in the district of Z' will ghara, the basilica was built around 1858.
• Monument of the Martyrs (Maquam E' chahid ): Set up with the site of the war memorial of the second world war natives of Algeria, destroyed by the Algerian government, high of 90 meters and overhanging Algiers, this monument was built by a Canadian company in 1984, and is composed of three palms resting on a vast esplanade where the “eternal flame is”. It is dedicated to the memory of the combatants of guerre of independence of the country.
• Place of the Emir Abdelkader: in memory of the famous emir Abd El-Kader, resistant during conquête of Algeria.
• the large post office (1910, by Voinot and Tondoire): construction of the neo-Moorish type which is in full center town of Algiers.
• Garden of Test (El-Hamma): extends on a surface from 80 hectares. It was created in 1832 by A. Hardy. Exotic plants and gardens there are found.
• Villa Abd-el-Hair: one of the old residences of the dey
• Citadel
• Riadh El-Feth: shopping center and art gallery
• Large Mosque of Algiers: this mosque became the Saint-Philippe cathedral during colonization before becoming again a mosque.
• National Library: located in the district of El Hamma, modern architectural design

JOURNEYS trips that include Algiers:

Ancient Algeria and Morocco from Nov. 3-17, 2007 with Will Weber