Algiers Audio Tours

Algiers has been called El Behdja -- the Joyous -- and Alger la Blanche, The White, for its whitewashed buildings cascading down toward the Mediterranean. The Casbah, the historic hillside neighborhood, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that packs centuries of Ottoman, Andalusian, and Algerian architecture into alleys barely wide enough for two people to pass. It was settled in the 10th century and reached its peak importance during the Ottoman Regency after 1516, when the city became one of the wealthiest ports in the Mediterranean.

The French conquered it in 1830 and spent 132 years trying to impose Haussmann-style boulevards on a medina that had no interest in being rearranged.

The Battle of Algiers in 1957 was fought street by street through those same narrow passages, a conflict that shaped the theory of urban warfare and was later recreated in Gillo Pontecorvo's film of the same name. Independence came in 1962, and the city became a capital again. The monumental Maqam Echahid, opened in 1982, rises above the city on three curved concrete columns representing the palm frond -- a deliberate counterpoint to the French monuments below.