Keep a little mystery in your trip planning: Explorer Picture Mode shows a stylized version of every place instead of the real photo, so you can go by the description and reviews first and picture it your own way -- reveal the real photo any time by flipping the switch off, or just for one place at a time from its own page.
Create a free account to pick your own style (Vintage, Oil Painting, Black & White) and have it remembered next time you visit.
Algeria's population descends primarily from the Amazigh (Berber) peoples, who have inhabited North Africa since before recorded history. The region entered the wider Mediterranean world through Phoenician trading colonies from around the 9th century BC, followed by incorporation into the Roman Empire, which left behind the extensive ruins still visible today at sites like Timgad and Djemila. Arab conquests beginning in the 7th century AD brought Islam and the Arabic language, which blended over centuries with existing Amazigh culture and identity rather than replacing it.
From the 16th century, Algeria became a semi-autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, ruled from Algiers by deys whose corsair fleets made the city notorious across the Mediterranean. France invaded in 1830, beginning 132 years of colonial rule that eventually saw Algeria formally annexed as part of metropolitan France itself, with large numbers of European settlers granted full citizenship while the Muslim majority was denied it. The Algerian War of Independence, launched by the National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1954, was fought with extraordinary brutality on both sides and ended with Algeria's independence in 1962 under President Charles de Gaulle. A far more recent turning point was the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s, triggered when the military canceled elections an Islamist party was poised to win -- a decade-long conflict that killed an estimated 150,000-200,000 people and largely cut Algeria off from international tourism for a generation.
Emir Abdelkader, a 19th-century religious and military leader, led a prolonged resistance against the French invasion and is regarded today as a founding figure of Algerian national identity. Ahmed Ben Bella, a leading figure in the War of Independence, became Algeria's first president in 1962. Houari Boumédiène, who overthrew Ben Bella in 1965, dominated Algerian politics for over a decade and shaped the country's state-led economic model around its oil and gas wealth.
Algerian identity today rests on layers that don't fully overlap -- Arabic is the official language, but a substantial Amazigh-speaking population, particularly in the Kabylie region, has pushed for decades for formal recognition of their language and culture, gradually winning constitutional recognition of Tamazight. French remains widely spoken in business, education, and daily life despite its colonial origins, a legacy Algeria has never fully resolved into a single cultural identity.
Modern Algeria is one of Africa's largest economies, built substantially on oil and gas exports, and remains one of the continent's least-visited large countries relative to its size -- a legacy of the civil war years and a historically complex visa process that the government has more recently taken steps to ease. Its Roman, Ottoman, and colonial-era sites remain remarkably uncrowded by regional standards, a direct consequence of the same history that kept tourism development slow.