Algeria


 * Overview**

On this project of Algeria, we each wrote at least one paragraph on each topic explaining their culture, social problems and more interesting details on Algeria. We also each placed at least one interesting picture in each catagorie. We included two videos for your pleasure on Algeria. (Melanie)What I found most interesting about algeria was their culture and their amazing history and the size of Algeria. I can't beleive Algeria is four times the size of Texas! Thats really amazing. (Tiana)What I found the most intresting about Algeria is that it had real pirates and decent trade. It also has a lot of rebelions and fighting though. We had to shorten Social problems for that reason. With in not long we realised it's quite a violent place. It is still remarkable, just the same. //-Melanie// //-Tiana//

Statistics Population: an estimated population near to 35,000,000. Nothing else easily found.

Geography

Nearly four times the size of Texas, Algeria is bordered on the west by Morocco and Western Sahara and on the east by Tunisia and Libya. The Mediterranean Sea is to the north, and to the south are Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. The Saharan region, which is 85% of the country, is almost completely uninhabited. The highest point is Mount Tahat in the Sahara, which rises 9,850 ft (3,000 m). Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural harbours. The area from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a steppe landscape, which ends with the Saharan Atlas; further south, there is the Sahara desert. In this region even in winter, midday desert temperatures can be very hot. After sunset, however, the clear, dry air permits rapid loss of heat, and the nights are cool to chilly. Enormous daily ranges in temperature are recorded.

History The earliest recorded inhabitants of Algeria were Berber-speaking peoples who by the 2d millennium B.C. were living in small village-based political units.In the 9th cent. B.C., Carthage was founded in modern-day Tunisia, and Carthaginians eventually established trading posts at Annaba, Skikda, and Algiers. Coastal Algeria was known as Numidia and was usually divided into two kingdoms, both of which were strongly influenced by Carthage. The kingdoms of Numidia were united by King Masinissa (c.238–149 B.C. ). The Romans gained control of the Tell Atlas region, part of the Plateau of the Chotts, and coastal Algeria around 146 B.C. The rest of present-day Algeria remained under Berber rulers and was outside Roman rule. By the 5th cent. Roman civilization in Algeria had been eroded by incursions of Berbers, and the destruction wreaked by the Vandals (who passed through Algeria on their way to Tunisia) in 430–431 marked the end of effective Roman control. In the early 6th cent. a temporary veneer of unity and order was forged by the Byzantine Empire, which conquered parts of the North African coast including the region E of Algiers. In the late 7th and early 8th cent. Muslim Arabs conquered Algeria and ousted the Byzantines. They had a profound influence as most of the Berbers quickly became Muslims and gradually absorbed the Arabic language and culture. In addition, the Arabs intermarried with the Berbers. Also, in the 8th and 9th cent. Tlemcen was the center of the Muslim Kharajite sect, and in the early 10th cent. the Fatimid dynasty began its major rise from a base in NE Algeria. In the late 15th cent. Spain expelled the Muslims from its soil and soon thereafter captured the coastal cities of Algeria. Algerians appealed to Turkish pirates (especially the Barbarossa brothers) for help, and, with the aid of the Ottoman Empire, they ended Spanish control by the mid-16th cent. Algeria then came under Ottoman rule. The country was at first governed by officials sent from Constantinople, but in 1671 the dey (ruler) of Algiers, chosen by local civilian, military, and pirate leaders to govern for life and virtually independent of the Ottoman Empire, became head of Algeria.The country was divided into three provinces (Constantine, Titteri, and Mascara), each governed by a bey. The coast was a stronghold of pirates (see Barbary States) who preyed on Mediterranean shipping. Privateering reached a high point in the 16th and 17th cent. and declined thereafter; there was a temporary increase during the Napoleonic Wars (early 19th cent.). Considerable trade with Europe also was conducted from Algerian ports; the chief exports were wheat, fruit, and woven goods. The country was in addition a center of the slave trade, most of the slaves being persons captured by pirates. The pirate Barbarossa
 * To the Early Nineteenth Century**

Economy Algeria trades most extensively with France and Italy, in terms of both imports and exports, but also trades with the United States and Spain. By far Algeria's most significant exports today (in terms of financial value) are petroleum and natural gas. Other significant exports are sheep, oxen, and horses; animal products, such as wool and skins; wine, cereals (rye, barley, oats), vegetables, fruits (chiefly figs and grapes for the table) and seeds, esparto grass, oils and vegetable extracts (chiefly olive oil), iron ore, zinc, natural phosphates, timber, cork, crin vegetal and tobacco. The import of wool exceeds the export. Sugar, coffee, machinery, metal work of all kinds, clothing and pottery are largely imported. Of these by far the greater part comes from France. The British imports consist chiefly of coal, cotton fabrics and machinery. The fossil fuels energy sector is the backbone of Algeria's economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and over 95% of export earnings.

Government Parliamentary republic.

Emblem of Algeria **الجزائر=Algeria** The head of state is the President of Algeria, who is elected to a five-year term. The Algerian parliament is bicameral, consisting of a lower chamber, the //National People's Assembly (APN)//, with 380 members; and an upper chamber, the //Council Of Nation//, with 144 members. The APN is elected every five years.

Religion  More than 99 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim. There is a small community of Ibadi Muslims in Ghardaia. Official data on the number of non-Muslim citizens is not available, however, there is a small population of Christian converts. Algeria had an important Jewish community until the 1960s, but there is no active Jewish community today, although a very small number of Jews continue to live in Algiers. Since 1994 the size of the Jewish community has diminished to virtual nonexistence due to fears of terrorist violence. The vast majority of Christians and Jews fled the country following independence from France in 1962. Many of those who remained emigrated in the 1990s due to violent acts of terrorism committed by Islamic extremists. According to Christian community leaders, Methodists and members of other Protestant denominations account for the largest numbers of non-Muslims, followed by Roman Catholics and Seventh-day Adventists. For security reasons, due mainly to the civil conflict, Christians concentrated in the large cities of Algiers, Annaba, and Oran in the mid-1990s. Evangelical proselytizing led to increases in the size of the Christian community in the eastern Berber region of Kabylie. A significant proportion of the country's Christian alien residents are students and illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa seeking to reach Europe; their numbers are difficult to estimate.
 * 99 percent of Algerian people are Muslim. But there are only a small percent that is christian and** jewish.

Culture Their culture is Literature, Music, Arts, Crafts and releligion. The Algerian musical genre best known abroad is raï, a pop-flavored, opinionated take on folk music, featuring international stars such as Khaled and Cheb Mami. in Algeria itself the style: ( raï ) remains the most popular,but the older generation still prefer ("shaabi", Dahmane Elharrashi its King..) while the tuneful melodies of Kabyle music, exemplified by Idir, Ait Menguellet, or Lounès Matoub, have a wide audience. For more classical tastes, Andalusi music, brought from Al-Andalus by Morisco refugees, is preserved in many older coastal towns. For a more modern style, the English born and of Algerian descent, Potent C is gradually becoming a success for younger generations. Encompassing a mixture of folk, raï, and British hip hop it is a highly collective and universal genre. Modern Algerian literature, split between Arabic and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history.

Social Problems

**Algeria has had many civil wars. Mostly with it's government. We have found that it has had about** 10 **rebilions alone within the ninteenth century. Other country wars aren't really a problem here. That's we really could find here.**

Other The Algerian animals. The animal kingdom presents little calling for notice. Lions, formerly very plentiful, are now extremely rare; leopards, panthers, jackals, and hyaenas are still common; and monkeys and apes are numerous. The wild boar is found in the oak forests, and the brown bear in the higher parts of Algeria.