Algeria

Algeria's history begins with the Amazigh peoples of the mountains and plains, whose kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania dealt with Carthage and Rome as equals before being absorbed into the empire.

Islam arrived in the seventh century, and the Rustamid, Hammadid, Almoravid, Almohad and Zayyanid dynasties each ruled from cities that still stand. Ottoman Algiers became a Mediterranean power in its own right.

The French colonial period lasted from 1830 until the war of independence ended in 1962, an event that reshaped the politics of the whole region.

Timgad, laid out by Trajan as a grid on the edge of the Aurès mountains, is the clearest surviving plan of a Roman colonial town. Djémila and Tipasa add temples, forums and basilicas set in exceptional landscapes.

The M'Zab Valley preserves five fortified Ibadi towns designed as a single coherent settlement, the Casbah of Algiers keeps its Ottoman citadel and stepped alleys above the bay, and Tassili n'Ajjer in the deep Sahara holds more than fifteen thousand rock paintings and engravings recording a green Sahara of hunters, cattle and rivers.

More than eighty per cent of Algeria is Sahara: the dune seas of the Grand Erg Oriental and Occidental, the volcanic peaks of the Hoggar around Tamanrasset, and the sandstone towers of Tassili.

To the north, the Tell and Saharan Atlas ranges catch the Mediterranean rain, supporting cedar forest at Chréa and Theniet El Had, high plateaus, and a coastline of more than a thousand kilometres.

Algerian music runs from the Andalusian classical schools of Tlemcen and Constantine to chaabi in the Algiers Casbah and rai from Oran, which became one of the most widely heard sounds of North Africa.

Amazigh traditions remain strong in Kabylia, the Aurès and the Mzab — in language, in silver and coral jewellery, in pottery and in the layout of the villages themselves.