ALGERIA

ALGERIA is a republic in northwestern Africa. It is situated on the Mediterranean coast and stretches between Morocco on the west and Tripoli and Tunis on the east.

The capital of this country is Algiers, Surface area: 2,382 thousand sq km, Official language: Arabic, and Population: 34.4 million (2007).

The country being divided into the Tell along the sea-coast, which is fertile, the Atlas Highlands overlooking it on the S., on the southern slopes of which are marshy lakes called "shotts," on which alfa grows wild, and the Sahara beyond, rendered habitable here and there by the creation of artesian wells.

The country is divided into Departments, of which Algiers, Oran, and Constantine are the respective capitals.

History

Algeria has been successively under the sway of the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Arabs, the Byzantines, and the Berbers, which last were in the 16th century supplanted by the Turks. At the end of this period it became a nest of pirates, against whom a succession of expeditions were sent from several countries of Europe, but it was only with the conquest of it by the French in 1830 that this state of things was brought to an end.

France colonized this country in the mid 19th century and was closely integrated with metropolitan France.

Algeria became independent in 1962, but only after a civil war in the 1950s. A multiparty system of democratic governance was introduced but it came to an end in 1992 after its military takeover by the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front that had won the first round of the national elections. It resulted into another low-level civil war in the country the continued until 2000, when the Islamic Salvation Army of the Islamic Salvation Front was dissolved to start a process of national reconciliation in the country.