Algeria – A Place

Algeria is officially the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. It is a country in North Africa. It sits between Morocco and Tunisia. Other border countries are Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Tunisia, and Western Sahara.

Algeria borders the Mediterranean Sea. The climate is arid to semiarid. There are mild wet winters and hot dry summers along the coast. Inland there are drier cold winters and hot summers on high plateau. There the sirocco is a hot dusty and sand-laden wind especially common in summer.

Most of the country is high plateau and desert. There are the Atlas Mountains in the far north and the Hoggar Mountains in the south. On the coastline, there is narrow discontinuous coastal plain.

History

Much of Algeria’s history has been dominated by Arabs. This was true until the Berber revolt of 740 CE. This revolt led to various communities been formed in Algeria. The communities include Berbers, Arabs, Sunni, and Persian Muslim states among many others. Although the majority of Algerians are still Muslims, Christianity arrived in the 2nd century. Almost 200 years after that, many areas have accepted Christianity including the Berber tribes.

Algeria was also a historic slave trade center because it was near Europe. Merchants from France and Spain contributed to the trade center immensely.

Algeria is situated in the affluent Northern part of Africa. The area is popular because of the role it played and still plays in serving as a transit region for people moving to Europe and the Middle East. The population of Algeria has become so diverse for this very reason. The country welcomes people from different parts of Africa and Europe.

On July 3, 1962, Algeria was declared an independent nation by France. Before long, it had its first president in Ahmed Ben Bella.

Modern Times

The population of Algeria consists of Berbers and the native people of Algeria. The country has a few smaller groups of Turkish people, Italians, French, and Spaniards. The majority of Algerians (99%) are ethnically Arab-Berber.

Modern Standard Arabic (literary Arabic) and Tamazight (Berber) are Algeria’s official languages. The native languages of Algerians (99%) are Algerian Arabic (72%) and Berber (27.4%). The most spoken Berber language is Kabyle in the country, though it’s partly co-official.

The population of Algeria (97%) is dominated by the Muslim religion, the majority of whom follow Sunni Islam. There are also 3,50,000 Christians and 2,000 Jews.

Genetics

This section is under development.

mtDNA

Genographic ProjectGeno 2.0 Data

Data from Geno 2.0 is derived from the The National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project — the DAR. The Hg ID is specific to this site and is used to protect the identities of those who take part in Genographic research. Birth Country, Mother's Birth Country, and Maternal Grandmother's Birth Country have been normalized from DAR database fields. The Maternal Origin is determined based on the three previous fields.

Note: Geno 2.0 results currently use Phylotree build 16. I am working on changing results over to build 17.

Sources and Resources

Background

• Algeria – CIA World FactBook
• Algeria – Wikipedia
• Algeria History – Wikipedia

Journal Articles

• Arredi, B.; Poloni, E.; Paracchini, S.; Zerjal, T.; Fathallah, D.; Makrelouf, M.; Pascali, V.; Novelletto, A. & Tylersmith, C. (2004). A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in North Africa. American journal of human genetics, 75(2), 338-345.
• Robino, C.; Crobu, F.; Di Gaetano, C.; Bekada, A.; Benhamamouch, S.; Cerutti, N.; Piazza, A.; Inturri, S. & Torre, C. (2008). Analysis of Y-chromosomal SNP haplogroups and STR haplotypes in an Algerian population sample. International journal of legal medicine, 122(3), 251-255.