History

Algeria has been inhabited by Berbers (or Imazighen) since at least 10,000 BC. After 100 BC, the Carthaginians began establishing settlements along the coast. The Berbers seized the opportunity offered by the Punic Wars to become independent of Carthage, and Berber kingdoms began to emerge, most notably Numidia. In 200 BC, however, they were once again taken over, this time by the Roman Republic. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Berbers became independent again in many areas, while the Vandals took control over other parts, where they remained until expelled by the generals of the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I. The Byzantine Empire then retained a precarious grip on the east of the country until the coming of the Arabs in the 8th century.

After some decades of fierce resistance under leaders such as Kusayla and Kahina, the Berbers adopted Islam en masse, but almost immediately expelled the banou moussa caliphate from Algeria, establishing an Ibadi state under the Rustamids. Having converted the Kutama of Kabylie to its cause, the Shia Fatimids overthrew the Rustamids, and conquered Egypt. They left Algeria and Tunisia to their Zirid vassals; when the latter rebelled and adopted Sunnism, they sent in a populous Arab tribe, the Banu Hilal, to weaken them, thus incidentally initiating the Arabisation of the countryside. The Almoravids and Almohads (Berber dynasties from the west founded by religious reformers) brought a period of relative peace and development; however, with the Almohads' collapse, Algeria became a battleground for their three successor states, the Algerian Zayyanids, Tunisian Hafsids, and Moroccan Marinids. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Spain started attacking and subsuming many coastal cities which prompted some to seek help from the Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman Rule

In 1517, Algeria was brought into the Ottoman Empire by Khair ad-Din and his brother Aruj, and they established Algeria's modern boundaries in the north and made its coast a base for the corsairs; their privateering peaked in Algiers in the 1600s. Piracy on American vessels in the Mediterranean resulted in the First (1801-1805) and Second Barbary War (1815) with the United States. Those piracy acts forced people captured on the boats into slavery; alternatively when the pirates attacked coastal villages in southern Europe the inhabitants were forced into slavery.

Raids by Barbary pirates on Western Europe did not cease until 1816, when a Royal Navy raid, assisted by six Dutch vessels, destroyed the port of Algiers and its fleet of Barbary ships.

Spanish occupation of Algerian ports at this time was a source of concern for the local inhabitants.

French Rule

In 1830, the French invaded Algiers. In contrast to Tunisia Morocco, the conquest of Algeria by the French was long and particularly violent, due to the intense resistence from Muslims such as Emir Abdelkader, Ahmed Bey and Fatma N'Soumer. The conquest was not technically complete until the early 1900s when the last Tuareg were conquered.

Meanwhile, however, the French made Algeria an integral part of France, a status that only ended with the collapse of the Fourth Republic in 1958. Tens of thousands of settlers from France, Italy, Spain and Malta moved in to farm the Algerian coastal plain and occupy significant parts of Algeria's cities. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communally held land, and the application of modern agriculture techniques that increased the amount of arable land.

From the end of the 19th century, people of European descent in Algeria and the native Algerian Jews (typically Sephardic in origin), became full French citizens. After Algeria's 1962 independence, they were called Pieds-Noirs. In contrast, the vast majority of Muslim Algerians (even veterans of the French army) received neither French citizenship nor the right to vote.

Post-Independence

In 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) launched a guerrilla campaign known as the Algerian War of Independence. In 1962, after nearly a decade of urban and rural warfare, the FLN eventually succeeded in pushing France out of Algeria. Over one million people (10% of the population), then fled the country for France in just a few months in mid-1962. These included most of the 1,025,000 Pieds-Noirs, along with 91,000 Harkis (pro-French Muslim Algerians serving in the French Army).

Algeria's first president was the FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella. He was overthrown by his former ally and defence minister, Houari Boumédiènne in 1965. Under Ben Bella the government had already become increasingly socialist and dictatorial, and this trend continued throughout Boumedienne's government. However, Boumedienne relied much more heavily on the army, and reduced the sole legal party to a merely symbolic role. Agriculture was collectivised, and a massive industrialisation drive was launched. Oil extraction facilities were nationalised. However, the Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil which led to hardship when the price collapsed in the 1980s.

While Algeria shares much of its history and cultural heritage with neighbouring Morocco, the two countries have had somewhat hostile relations with each other since Algeria's independence. This is due to two reasons: Morocco's disputed claim to portions of western Algeria (which led to the Sand war in 1963), and Algeria's support for the Polisario, an armed group of Sahrawi refugees seeking independence for the Moroccan-ruled Western Sahara, which it hosts within its borders in the city of Tindouf.

Within Algeria, dissent was rarely tolerated, and the state's control over the media and the outlawing of political parties, other than the FLN, was cemented in the repressive constitution of 1976.

Boumédienne died in 1978, but the rule of his successor, Chadli Bendjedid, was not much more open. The state took on a strongly bureaucratic character and corruption became widespread.

The modernisation drive brought considerable demographic changes to Algeria. Village traditions underwent significant change as urbanisation increased. New industries emerged, and agricultural employment was substantially reduced. Education was extended nationwide, raising the literacy rate from less than 10% to over 60%. There was a dramatic increase in the fertility rate to 7-8 children per mother.

Therefore by 1980, there was a very youthful population and a housing crisis. The new generation struggled to relate to the cultural obsession with the war years and two conflicting protest movements developed: left-wingers, including Berber identity movements; and Islamic 'intégristes'. Both groups protested against one-party rule but also clashed with each other in universities and on the streets during the 1980s. Mass protests from both camps in autumn 1988 forced Benjedid to concede the end of one-party rule. In December 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of the country's first multi-party elections. The military then cancelled the second round, forced then-president Bendjedid to resign, and banned the Islamic Salvation Front. The ensuing conflict engulfed Algeria in the violent Algerian Civil War, resulting in the death of more than 160,000 people between 17 January 1992 and June 2002.

Elections resumed in 1995, and after 1998, the war waned. On 27 April 1999, after a series of short-term leaders representing the military, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the current president, was elected. By 2002, the main guerrilla groups had either been destroyed or surrendered, taking advantage of an amnesty program, although sporadic fighting continued in some areas.

The issue of Berber language and identity increased in significance, particularly after the extensive Kabyle protests of 2001 and the near-total boycott of local elections in Kabylie. The government responded with concessions including naming of Tamazight (Berber) as a national language and teaching it in schools.

Much of Algeria is now recovering and developing into an emerging economy. The high prices of oil and gas are being used by the new government to improve the country's infrastructure and especially improve industry and agricultural land. Recent overseas investment in Algeria has increased.