Béjaïa
Béjaïa, formerly known as Bougie and Bugia, is a Mediterranean port city and commune on the Gulf of Béjaïa in Algeria; it is the capital of Béjaïa Province.
Geography
Location
Béjaïa owes its existence to its port, which also makes it prosperous. It is located in a sickle-shaped bay protected from the swell of offshore winds by the advance of Cape Carbon. The city is backed by Mount Gouraya located in a northwest position. This port site, in one of the most beautiful bays of the Maghreb and Mediterranean coast, is dominated in the background by the Babors mountain range. Another advantage is that the city is the outlet of the Soummam valley, a geographical corridor facing southwest. However, since the time when the city was a capital, there has been a divorce between the city and the region linked to the difficulty of securing a hinterland. On a macro-regional scale, the city has its back to the region: its position at the end of the Soummam places it at the interface between Grande and Petite Kabylie. But these two groups are closed in on themselves and seek inland capitals by turning away from the coast. The city has, in a way, weak local roots; the rural proximity of the city is limited to four or five communes. On a micro-regional scale, Béjaïa is the outlet of a central Algeria, going from Algiers to Skikda, the spillway of the Highlands and a supply port for two million people. But the connection is complex: to the south-east, trade with Sétif is only possible through the steep gorges of Kherrata; another route takes the Soummam, then to the east the Iron Gates and the climb towards Bordj Bou Arreridj, it is this route that is taken by the national road and the railway. These topographical constraints mean that, despite its strong dynamism, the city sees part of the trade escape it in its eastern and western areas of influence.The town is overlooked by the mountain . Other nearby scenic spots include the Aiguades beach and the Pic des Singes ; the latter site is a habitat for the endangered Barbary macaque, which prehistorically had a much broader distribution than at present. All three of these geographic features are located in the Gouraya National Park.
The urban area covers an area of 12,022 hectares. Béjaïa is located 220 km east of the capital Algiers, 93 km east of Tizi Ouzou, 81.5 km northeast of Bordj Bou Arreridj, 70 km northwest of Sétif and 61 km west of Jijel. The geographic coordinates of the commune at the central point of its capital are 36° 45′ 00″ North and 5° 04′ 00″ East, respectively.
Toponymy
Béjaïa is transliteration from an Arabic toponym derived from the Berber toponym Bgayet, notably by transliteration of the sound ǧ in dj. This Berber name — which would have originally been Tabgayet, but whose initial t marking the feminine gender would have fallen into disuse — would come from the words tabegga, tabeɣayt, meaning "wild brambles and blackberries". In Tifinagh script, the name of the city is .The name Béjaïa would thus originally have the same Berber root as other names of cities in the Maghreb, such as Dougga and Béja in Tunisia or Ksar Baghaï in the Aurès.
In medieval Romance languages, Bugaya (from Arabic Bugāya; in Spanish Bujía and in Italian Bugía is the name given to the city, which supplied a large quantity of beeswax for the manufacture of candles. Bougie became the French form of this transcription of the Arabic name. Gradually it came to refer to the wax that was imported in the Middle Ages for the manufacture of candles in Europe; they are from then on commonly designated in French by the word "bougie". This in turn is carried over to the word Bugia, meaning a long-handled candlestick used by Catholic bishops and high-ranking priests.
Climate and hydrography
The city is part of the Soummam's drainage basin. Béjaïa and the lower Soummam Valley enjoy a Mediterranean climate. It is generally humid with a slight seasonal temperature change. Average temperatures are generally mild and vary from 11.1 °C in winter to 24.5 °C in summer.In addition to the Soummam River, which sufficiently meets agricultural needs in the surroundings of the city, Béjaïa is located in the maritime Kabylie and benefits from a fairly favorable rainfall compared to the rest of the country. The rainfall in the region can range from 800 mm to 1,200 mm, but some local sources tend to be depleted due to increased demand. The city also draws its water resources from the mountainous hinterland and from various springs, such as that of Toudja, which was connected in ancient times by an aqueduct to the ancient city.
Roadside and rail communications
The city of Béjaïa is linked to Algiers, Tizi Ouzou, Bouira, Sétif, Jijel and several Kabyle localities by an important road network. It has a bus station. Bus lines connect it to the cities of the Algerian south, including Hassi Messaoud, Ouargla, Ghardaïa, Laghouat, Djelfa and Bou Saâda.The commune of Béjaïa is served by several national roads. Some of them run through valleys and gorges that constitute natural passage areas: national road 9, which passes along the coast then the Kherrata gorges to Sétif, and national road 24, which crosses the Soummam valley, Bouira, then Algiers to the west, or Bordj Bou Arreridj to the east. Others run through steeper terrain: national road 12, passing through the Yakouren forest and its mountains then Azazga, Tizi-Ouzou to Boumerdès, and national road 75, passing through Barbacha and the mountains of Petite Kabylie to reach Sétif and join the Highlands to Batna. A highway construction project is underway to ease congestion on the Béjaïa road, the main axis between the capital and the east of the country, and to connect the city and its port, one of the most important in Algeria, to the Algerian East–west highway.
Béjaïa has a railway station, the terminus of the Beni Mansour-Bejaia line, created in 1889 and on which a railcar runs linking the stations in the region: Beni Mansour, Tazmalt, Allaghan, Akbou, Lazib Ben Cherif, Ighzer Amokrane, Takriets, Sidi Aich, Ilmaten and El Kseur, The interconnection, at Beni Mansour, with the Algiers–Skikda railway, allows access to the entire Algerian railway network by direct links to the Algerian capital, to the west, and to Sétif, to the south-east. A regional train specifically linking Béjaïa to its outskirts is also in service; it was designed to open up the east of the region. The line would benefit from about fifteen daily round trips and should serve the stations of the Beni Mansour-Bejaia line. Bejaia has an international airport located 5 km south of the city. It was first called "Bejaia - Soummam Airport" between 1982 and 1999, named after the Soummam River which flows into the Mediterranean near Bejaia. It was inaugurated in 1982 for domestic flights and in 1993 for international flights. It was renamed "Bejaia - Soummam - Abane Ramdane Airport" in 1999, in homage to the Algerian politician who played a key role in the history of the Algerian War of Independence.
History
Prehistory
The presence of man is attested in various urban and peri-urban sites. The Ali Bacha cave station would represent the oldest settlement site around 40,000 to 20,000 BC. On the Aiguades site, the equipment and furniture found evoke a period around 10,000 BC and therefore Neolithic. The region is also rich in archaeological deposits such as the Afalou caves where some of the oldest burials of modern men, known as Mechta-Afalou men, have been found, which testifies to a culture focused on compassion with the burial of individuals in cave-sanctuary-necropolises and the use of clay pottery dated from 18,000 to 11,000 BC. These deposits are typical of the so-called Iberomaurusian archaeological culture.Antiquity and Byzantine era
The city contains remains from the Bronze Age. The oldest known remains are a "hanout" which is a form of Libyc tomb. Long attributed to the Punic culture, it is in fact much older, its dating is interdetermined.The advantageous site, sheltered from the winds by Cape Carbon, was surely occupied very early. The first trace of historical mention appears in the 5th century BC in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax. The region was part of the kingdom of Numidia. In addition, the Punic influence is present: the Carthaginians traveled the North African coasts to trade and establish trading posts called emporioe.
Jugurtha's defeat by the Romans changed the latter's alliance into a suzerainty; Augustus divided the territory into provinces constituting Caesarean Mauretania, and, according to Pliny the Elder, Saldae was a Roman colony founded with the first annexations in 33 BC. Eight years later, he returned the province of the city to the Numidian king Juba II in compensation for his hereditary states. The city acquired a predominantly Latin culture and was Christianized. The Romans set up various hydraulic networks that would be reused centuries later in the Hammadid era. The Toudja aqueduct dates from the reign of Antoninus Pius. But the city did not know the importance of the development of Hippo, which flourished more under the Romans.
Augustus also founded Tubusuptus, the current ruins of Tiklat, a few kilometres away on the banks of the Nasava. From the 1st century, the revolt of Tacfarinas involved all the Numidian populations of the region; he invested the Soummam valley, took Tiklat and reached Saldae. He was finally pushed back by the proconsul Publius Cornelius Dolabella. In the 4th century, in the mountains near Saldae, Firmus gathered the "Quinquegentians" and led them against the Romans. Count Theodosius arrived with troops from Europe to put down the revolt; he had difficulty overcoming the insurgents.
The Vandals in turn entered North Africa from Spain in 429. Led by Genseric, they carried iron to all the coastal towns. They made Saldae the capital of their new state until the capture of Carthage in 439. The struggles between the supporters of Arianism and those of Catholicism weakened the entire region; the Byzantines then found there a pretext and an opportunity to intervene. The city then fell under Byzantine domination in the Vandalic War in 533. The heavy Byzantine oppression also soon gave rise to the population's desire for revolt until the Arab conquest of North Africa.
File:Hafsids Bougie Algeria 1249 1276 ornemental Kufic.JPG|thumb|Coin of the Hafsids, with ornamental Kufic script, from Béjaïa, 1249–1276