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| People's Democratic Republic of Algeria الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية ⵜⴰⴳⴷⵓⴷⴰ ⵜⴰⵎⴳⴷⴰⵢⵜ ⵜⴰⵖⵔⴼⴰⵏⵜ ⵜⴰⴷⵣⴰⵢⵔⵉⵢⵜ République algérienne démocratique et populaire | |
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 Flag
 Coat of arms
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Motto: "By the people and for the people" | |
 | |
| Capital | Algiers |
| Common languages | Arabic Berber French |
| Religion | 99% Sunni Islam 1% Other |
| Demonym(s) | Algerian |
| Dominant mode of production | Capitalism |
| Government | Unitary Bourgeois People's Republic |
| Area | |
• Total | 2,381,741 km² |
| Population | |
• 2021 estimate | 44,700,000 |
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area. It is bordered by Tunisia in the northeast, Libya in the east, Niger in the southeast, Mali and Mauritania in the southwest, a few kilometers of the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara in the southwest, Morocco in the west and northwest, and the Mediterranean Sea in the north. Its size is almost 2,400,000 km2 with an estimated population of 35,000,000. The capital of Algeria is Algiers.
Algeria is a member of the United Nations, African Union, OPEC and the Arab League. It also contributed towards the creation of the Maghreb Union. It the home of Frantz Fanon, the famous anti-colonial writer.
History
French colonization
France seized Algiers from the Ottoman Empire in 1830 and over the next four decades established its control over the rest of Algeria, making it a French colony.
Independence struggle
In 1945, French paratroopers violently disbanded the Friends of Liberty and the Manifesto and killed tens of thousands of Algerians. The National Liberation Front (FLN) formed in 1954 following a counterattack on the French.[1]
In the 1950s and 60s the indigenous people of Algeria, under the leadership of the FLN, struggled to free the country from French rule. Algeria achieved independence in 1962. Its first president was FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella. In the 1960s and 70s, under Ben Bella and his successor Houari Boumédiène, Algeria pursued industrialisation within a state-controlled socialist economy. Agriculture and the oil wells were nationalised.
References
- ↑ Vijay Prashad (2008). The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World: 'Paris' (pp. 4–5). [PDF] The New Press. ISBN 9781595583420 [LG]