Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in North Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered part of the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. Algeria covers an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), making it the world's tenth largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa, more than 200 times as large as the continent's smallest country, The Gambia. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the tenth-most populous country in Africa, and the 32nd-most populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast.
Much of the history of Algeria has taken place on the fertile coastal plain of North Africa, which is often called the Maghreb. North Africa served as a transit region for people moving towards Europe or the Middle East, thus, the region's inhabitants have been influenced by populations from other areas, including the Carthaginians, Romans, and Vandals. The region was conquered by the Muslims in the early 8th century AD, but broke off from the Umayyad Caliphate after the Berber Revolt of 740. During the Ottoman period, Algeria became an important state in the Mediterranean sea which led to many naval conflicts. The last significant events in the country's recent history have been the Algerian War and Algerian Civil War.
Mauretania is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, of Berber ancestry, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli.
Kabylia or Kabylie is a mountainous coastal region in northern Algeria and the homeland of the Kabyle people. It is part of the Tell Atlas mountain range and is located at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
The pieds-noirs are people of French and other European descent who were born in Algeria during the period of French rule from 1830 to 1962. Many of them departed for mainland France during and after the war by which Algeria gained its independence in 1962.
Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber, Punic and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria.
The Maghrawa or Meghrawa were a large Zenata Berber tribal confederation whose cradle and seat of power was the territory located on the Chlef in the north-western part of today's Algeria, bounded by the Ouarsenis to the south, the Mediterranean Sea to the north and Tlemcen to the west. They ruled these areas on behalf of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba at the end of the 10th century and during the first half of the 11th century.
The conquest of the Maghreb by the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates commenced in 647 and concluded in 709, when the Byzantine Empire lost its last remaining strongholds to Caliph Al-Walid I. The North African campaigns were part of the century of rapid early Muslim conquests.
The Kabyle people are a Berber ethnic group indigenous to Kabylia in the north of Algeria, spread across the Atlas Mountains, 160 kilometres (100 mi) east of Algiers. They represent the largest Berber population of Algeria and the second largest in North Africa.
Mila is a city in the northeast of Algeria and the capital of Mila Province. In antiquity, it was known as Milevum or Miraeon, Μιραίον and was situated in the Roman province of Numidia.
Kusaila was a 7th-century Berber Christian ruler of the kingdom of Altava and leader of the Awraba tribe, a Christianised sedentary Berber tribe of the Aures and possibly Christian king of the Sanhaja. Under his rule his domain stretched from Volubilis in the west to the Aurès in the east and later Kairouan and the interior of Ifriqiya. Kusaila is mostly known for prosecuting an effective Berber military resistance against the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 680s. He died in one of those battles in 688.
Negrine is a town and commune in Tébessa Province in north-eastern Algeria. It was the site of ancient Casae Nigrae, a settlement of Roman North Africa with an attached bishopric that remains a Latin Catholic titular see.
Masuna or Massonas was a Berber from what is now western Algeria who was said to have been a Christian, he ruled the Mauro-Roman Kingdom with its capital based in Altava which is now in present-day Algeria around the Tlemcen area. He was able to maintain the independence of his kingdom by resisting occupation from the Vandals. King Masuna allied with the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian and assisted him in a war against the Vandals in 533 and also against other invading Berber tribal confederations. During his reign he was obeyed by the tribes of Mauretania.
The Kingdom of Altava was an independent Christian Berber kingdom centered on the city of Altava in present-day northern Algeria. The Kingdom of Altava was a successor state of the previous Mauro-Roman Kingdom which had controlled much of the ancient Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis. During the reign of Kusaila, it extended from Volubilis in the west to the Aurès and later Kairaouan and the interior of Ifriqiya in the east. This Kingdom collapsed following Eastern Roman military campaigns to decrease its influence and power after Garmul invaded the Exarchate of Africa.
The Mauro-Roman kingdom, also described as the kingdom of Masuna, was a Christian Berber kingdom which dominated much of the ancient Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis from the capital city of Altava. Scholars are in disagreement about whether the polity aimed for independence as a kingdom or was part of a loose confederation, an alternative hypothesis drawn from contextual knowledge about Berber tribal alliances. In the fifth century, Roman control over the province weakened and Imperial resources had to be concentrated elsewhere, notably in defending the Roman Italy itself from invading Germanic tribes. Moors and Romans in Mauretania came to operate independently from the Empire. However, regional leaders may not have necessarily felt abandoned by the Romans.
The Kingdom of the Aurès was an independent Christian Berber kingdom primarily located in the Aurès Mountains of present-day north-eastern Algeria. Established in the 480s by King Masties following a series of Berber revolts against the Vandalic Kingdom, which had conquered the Roman province of Africa in 435 AD, Aurès would last as an independent realm until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in 703 AD when its last monarch, Queen Dihya, was slain in battle.
Nacéra Benseddik is an Algerian historian, archaeologist and epigrapher. She was born in Bordj Bou Arreridj on 4 December 1949.
The Battle of Chelif or Battle of Djidouia took place on 28 April 1701 on the banks of the Chelif River. It was fought between the armies of the Alaouite Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif and those of the Regency of Algiers commanded by the Bey of Mascara, Mustapha Bouchelaghem. It took place in the context of an attempt by the Alaouites to conquer the west of the Regency of Algiers, coordinated with an offensive by Tunis on the east of the Regency of Algiers in 1700 and 1701.
Iaudas or Iabdas was a Berber leader of the sixth century and king of the Kingdom of the Aurès who held the Byzantines in check for a long time in the Aurès, and played an important role in the Berber revolts following the Byzantine reconquest.
The Aurès Mountains in northeastern Algeria, part of the Saharan Atlas in North Africa, is widely inhabited by Amazighs called Chaouis, and have been an important part of kingdoms such as the Massylii, Numidia, Gaetuli and Amazigh.
