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Algiers

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: African Geography

              Algiers (الجزائر)
   Algiers as seen from space.
   Algiers as seen from space.

   Official seal of Algiers
   Seal
            Nickname: "al-Bahjah"
   Location of Algiers within Algeria
   Location of Algiers within Algeria
      Algiers     944 A.D.
        Area
       - City     273 km²
     Population
    - City (2003) around 2.9 million people

   Algiers (Arabic: الجزائر al-Jazāʼir, literally "the Islands"; Berber:
   Ldzayer, French: Alger) is the capital and largest city of Algeria in
   North Africa. According to the 1998 census the population of the city
   proper was 1,519,570, whilst the total for the agglomeration was
   2,135,630. Nicknamed al-Bahjah (البهجة) or Alger la Blanche ("Algiers
   the White") for the glistening white of its buildings as seen sloping
   up from the sea, it is situated on the west side of a bay of the
   Mediterranean Sea. The city name is derived from its location on the
   slopes of the " Sahel", a chain of hills parallel to the coast.

   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 above the sea. The casbah and the two quays form a
   triangle.
   Algiers coast
   Enlarge
   Algiers coast

History

   City and harbour of Algiers, circa 1921
   Enlarge
   City and harbour of Algiers, circa 1921

   A Phoenician commercial outpost called Ikosim, turned into a Roman
   small 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 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
   an 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 brothers
   Arouj 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, drove the Spaniards from the Penon
   (1550) and was the founder of the pashaluk, afterwards beylik, of
   Algeria.
   The bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth, August 1816, painted by
   Thomas Luny
   Enlarge
   The bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth, August 1816, painted by
   Thomas Luny

   Algiers from this time became the chief seat of the Barbary pirates. In
   October 1541, the 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, free of Ottoman control
   and 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 Algierian slave
   raid in 1715), assisted by Dutch men-of-war, and the corsair fleet
   burned. On the 4th of July in 1830, on the pretext of an affront to
   their 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 on the following day.

   The history of Algiers from 1830 to 1962 is bound to the larger history
   of Algeria and its relationship to France.

   In 1962, after a bloody independence struggle in which hundreds of
   thousands of Algerians died (a million according to official Algerian
   history) 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 3
   million inhabitants, or 10% of Algeria's population — and its suburbs
   now cover most of the surrounding Metidja plain.
   Algiers by night
   Enlarge
   Algiers by night
     * Algiers is hosting the 2007 All-Africa Games for the 2nd time, they
       hosted the event in 1978.

Local architecture

   There are many public buildings of interest, including the whole casbah
   quarter, Martyrs Square (Sahat ech-Chouhada ساحة الشهداء), the
   government offices (formerly the British consulate), the "Grand",
   "New", and Ketchaoua Mosques, the Roman Catholic cathedral of Notre
   Dame d'Afrique, the Bardo Museum (a former Turkish mansion), the old
   Bibliotheque Nationale d'Alger — a Turkish palace built in 1799–1800 —
   and the new National Library, built in a style reminiscent of the
   British Library.

   The main building in the casbah was begun in 1516 on the site of an
   older building, and served as the palace of the deys until the French
   conquest. A road has been cut through the centre of the building, the
   mosque turned into barracks, and the hall of audience allowed to fall
   into ruin. There still remain a minaret and some marble arches and
   columns. Traces exist of the vaults in which were stored the treasures
   of the dey.

   The Grand Mosque (Jamaa-el-Kebir الجامع الكبير) is traditionally said
   to be the oldest mosque in Algiers. The pulpit ( minbar منبر) bears an
   inscription showing that the building existed in 1018. The minaret was
   built by Abu Tachfin, sultan of Tlemcen, in 1324. The interior of the
   mosque is square and is divided into aisles by columns joined by
   Moorish arches.
   The New Mosque (Jamaa el-Jedid) in Algiers — late 1800's
   Enlarge
   The New Mosque (Jamaa el-Jedid) in Algiers — late 1800's
   The Monument of the Martyrs (Maquam E’chahid).
   Enlarge
   The Monument of the Martyrs (Maquam E’chahid).

   The New Mosque (Jamaa-el-Jedid الجامع الجديد), dating from the 17th
   century, is in the form of a Greek cross, surmounted by a large white
   cupola, with four small cupolas at the corners. The minaret is 90 ft.
   high. The interior resembles that of the Grand Mosque.

   The church of the Holy Trinity (built in 1870) stands at the southern
   end of the rue d'Isly near the site of the demolished Fort Bab Azoun
   باب عزون. The interior is richly decorated with various coloured
   marbles. Many of these marbles contain memorial inscriptions relating
   to the English residents (voluntary and involuntary) of Algiers from
   the time of John Tipton, British consul in 1580. One tablet records
   that in 1631 two Algerine pirate crews landed in Ireland, sacked
   Baltimore, and carried off its inhabitants to slavery; another recalls
   the romantic escape of Ida M’Donnell, daughter of Admiral Ulric,
   consul-general of Denmark, and wife of the British consul. When Lord
   Exmouth was about to bombard the city in 1816, the British consul was
   thrown into prison and loaded with chains. Mrs M’Donnell — who was but
   sixteen — escaped to the British fleet disguised as a midshipman,
   carrying a basket of vegetables in which her baby was hidden. (Mrs
   M’Donnell subsequently married the duc de Talleyrand-Perigord and died
   at Florence in 1880). Among later residents commemorated is Edward
   Lloyd, who was the first person to show the value of esparto grass for
   the manufacture of paper, and thus started an industry which is one of
   the most important in Algeria.

   The Ketchaoua mosque (Djamaa Ketchaoua جامع كتشاوة), at the foot of the
   Casbah, was before independence in 1962 the cathedral of St Philippe,
   itself made in 1845 from a mosque dating from 1612. The principal
   entrance, reached by a flight of 23 steps, is ornamented with a portico
   supported by four black-veined marble columns. The roof of the nave is
   of Moorish plaster work. It rests on a series of arcades supported by
   white marble columns. Several of these columns belonged to the original
   mosque. In one of the chapels was a tomb containing the bones of San
   Geronimo. The building seems a curious blend of Moorish and Byzantine
   styles.

   Algiers possesses a college with schools of law, medicine, science and
   letters. The college buildings are large and handsome. The Bardo museum
   holds some of the ancient sculptures and mosaics discovered in Algeria,
   together with medals and Algerian money.

   The port of Algiers is sheltered from all winds. There are two
   harbours, both artificial — the old or northern harbour and the
   southern or Agha harbour. The northern harbour covers an area of 235
   acres (950,000 m²). An opening in the south jetty affords an entrance
   into Agha harbour, constructed in Agha Bay. Agha harbour has also an
   independent entrance on its southern side.

   The inner harbour was begun in 1518 by Khair-ad-Din Barbarossa (see
   History, below), who, to accommodate his pirate vessels, caused the
   island on which was Fort Penon to be connected with the mainland by a
   mole. The lighthouse which occupies the site of Fort Penon was built in
   1544.

   Algiers was a walled city from the time of the deys until the close of
   the 19th century. The French, after their occupation of the city
   (1830), built a rampart, parapet and ditch, with two terminal forts,
   Bab Azoun باب عزون to the south and Bab-el-Oued باب الواد to the north.
   The forts and part of the ramparts were demolished at the beginning of
   the 20th century, when a line of forts occupying the heights of
   Bouzareah بوزريعة (at an elevation of 1300 ft. above the sea) took
   their place.

   Notre-Dame d'Afrique, a church built (1858–1872) in a mixture of the
   Roman and Byzantine styles, is conspicuously situated, overlooking the
   sea, on the shoulder of the Bouzareah hills, 2 m. to the north of the
   city. Above the altar is a statue of the Virgin depicted as a black
   woman. The church also contains a solid silver statue of the archangel
   Michael, belonging to the confraternity of Neapolitan fishermen.

   Villa Abd-el-Tif, former residence of the dey, was used during the
   French period, to accommodate French artists, chiefly painters, and
   winners of the Abd-el-Tif prize, among whom Maurice Boitel, for a while
   of two years. Nowadays, Algerian artists are back in the villa's
   studios.

Sister relationships

   Algiers has sister relationships with several places worldwide:
     * People's Republic of China Beijing, China
     * Germany Berlin, Germany
     * Egypt Cairo, Egypt
     * France Paris, France
     * Canada Montreal, Canada
     * Morocco Casablanca, Morocco
     * United Kingdom England London, England, United Kingdom
     * Tunisia Tunis, Tunisia
     * Russia Moscow, Russia
     * United States New York City, United States
     * Spain Barcelona, Spain
     * Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland
     * Libya Tripoli, Libya
     * Italy Rome, Italy
     * Senegal Dakar, Senegal
     * Netherlands Amsterdam, Netherlands

   In addition, many of the wards and cities within Algiers maintain
   sister-city relationships with other foreign cities.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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