Nicknamed "El Bahdja" (the joyful) or even Algiers the White, the capital is today the first town of the Maghreb. Founded in the year 960 on the ruins of the Roman former city Icosium by Bologhine Ibn Ziri, situated in the territory of the Berber tribe of the Beni Mezghenna.
The meaning of the name given by Bologhine ibn Ziri would want that the name is given in reference to the islands that did facing the harbor of Algiers to the era and that later were related to his current pier; in Arabic (الجزائر), Al-Djaza’ir "The Islets". According to of other hypotheses notably advanced by El-Bekri, famous Andalusian polygraph, the correct name would be the one preserved by the oral tradition of the inhabitants of the city designating it as Dzéyer, that would be a homage to founding Ziri of the city. Besides the inhabitants of the city until our days designate themselves as Dziri.
The former city ottoman spreads itself on about thirty kilometers. it is trimmed to the North and to the East by the sea Mediterranean forming the fine bay of Algiers, and dominated by the Casbah. The multiples influence foreign (Roman, Turkish and French) fashioned the of Algiers region, doing her a cosmopolitan and open region to the world.
The Casbah of Algiers constitutes a unique type of medina, or Islamic city. Memory place as much as of history, place of memory as well as history, it contains remains of the citadel, old mosques, palaces ottoman, as well as a traditional urban structure associate to a big direction of the community. The Bastion 23 is constituted of three palaces having used residence of the bosses of the navy or Rais, the basilica of Our Lady of Africa overhangs the magnificent bay of Algiers.