1st November: Algeria National Day

Today is Algeria's National Day, marking the beginning of the war of independence.

1. Algeria is the largest country in the Arab world and also the largest bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the tenth largest country in the world.
2. The two largest cities are Algiers, the capital, from which the country gets its name, and Oran, which comes from the Berber world for "two Lions" because lions were seen there in 900BC.
3. Algeria is the second-largest Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers, and French is the language used in government, education and the media, but it is not one of the official languages, which are Modern Standard Arabic and Berber.
4. Only 12% of the country is inhabited - 80% of it is Sahara Desert. 90% of the people live on the northern coast. 1.5 million people in Algeria are nomadic or partly nomadic.
5. There is one species of monkey native to Algeria - the Barbary macaque. The animal most associated with the country is the fennec, a type of fox. The national football team is known as "les fennecs".
6. While on the subject of football, the University of Algiers may well be the only university in the world to have had a Nobel Prize winning goal-keeper - Albert Camus, who won the Literature prize in 1957.
7. Other writers to hail from Algeria include Augustine of Hippo and Apuleius, who wrote the Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass, believed to be the oldest Latin novel to survive completely. It’s the story of a person that gets changed into a Donkey and its following experiences. Talking of donkeys, I came across a story that in 2007, a court in Algeria had to rule on the ownership of a donkey which had eaten the money brought by a purchaser for its sale.
8. Petroleum and gas make up 98% of Algeria’s exports, although Algeria also has the largest oat market in Africa.
9. The highest point is Mount Tahat (3,003 m).
10. Pirates from Algeria used to prey on shipping in the Mediterranean Sea, taking crews and passengers to sell as slaves. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They were even known to range as far north as Iceland in search of slaves. Some of the Icelandic slaves were ransomed back to Iceland - but some chose to stay which suggests there are people in Algeria with Icelandic ancestors.