Algeria

Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Spanning over 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), it is the largest country in Africa and the tenth largest in the world. It 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. With a population of over 47 million, Algeria is the tenth-most populous country in Africa. Its capital and largest city is Algiers. Algeria's territory has been a crossroads of cultures and civilizations for millennia, shaped first by indigenous Amazigh societies, including the Numidians, whose kingdom became one of the earliest major states in the region, as well as by Phoenician, Roman, Vandal, and Byzantine influences. From the 7th century onward, the spread of Islam and the arrival of Arab tribes gradually transformed the region's linguistic, religious, and cultural landscape, contributing to the development of a distinct Algerian identity rooted in both Arab-Islamic and Amazigh heritage. Between the 8th and 15th centuries, Algeria was ruled by a succession of local Islamic dynasties including Rustamids, Fatimids, Zirids, Hammadids, Almohads and Zayyanids. In 1516, the Regency of Algiers was established, gradually emerging as a largely autonomous state owing nominal allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. After nearly three centuries as a major power in the Mediterranean, the country was invaded by France in 1830 and formally annexed in 1848, though it was not fully conquered and pacified until 1903. French rule brought mass European settlement that displaced the local population; by mid-1870, indigenous Algerians declined by up to a third due to warfare, disease, and starvation. French colonization faced continuous Algerian resistance, from Emir...