Talk:Algiers

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	The following comments have been left for this page: Rated Start A capital city article should contain at least 25 in line sources. WP:CITE Use properly formatted references. WP:CITET Expand the article. See Dhaka. Remove wikilink tagging from broken/red wikilinks. Refrain from translating English names/words in the text to a language other than English. Alan.ca 14:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC) (edit)

Khair-ed-Din (see History, below), who, to accommodate his pirate vessels, caused the island on which was Fort Penon to be connected with the mainland by a mole.

A mole? What kind of mole? -Martin

A massive structure, usually of stone, as pier, breakwater or junction between places separated by water.

Cheers :)

1 province and city
2 Richest city
3 Section moved grom page for cleanup
4 Years 2000
5 'The Largest city in the Maghreb'
6 Machine translation?
7 Someone needs to do some major editing here....
8 Proof reading
9 "...and largest city of Algeria and the second largest city in North Africa..."

[edit] province and city

the article Algiers referrences both a coty and a province, I suggest they are seperated --The Brain 11:47, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Why is Algiers called the islands? There are no visible islands in the vicinity of algiers...--Burgas00 17:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

This is really quite a complex question. The name of the city varied in the old times in Arabic: some wrote it "jazayer" others wrote it "zayer" (obviously this is vocal transliterations I'm writing with latin characters). "jazayer" means "the islands" in Arabic. "zayer" means absolutely nothing in Arabic. Anyways... as the city grew powerful in the middle ages it also became the name of the country Algeria (Algeria is called "el jazayer" today in Arabic) like Tunis to the East gave its name to Tunisia and Marakech to the West gave its name to Morocco. The thing is that in Algeria there is an Arab and a Berber culture. Today those who want to promote Arabic identity of Algeria claim that "el jazayer" means "islands" and is a proper Arabic word (just like el jazira, the TV station means "the island" or "the peninsula". singular). Those who want to promote Berber identity claim that in the historical books it was written more like "zayer" originally. So the 2 viewpoints are these: - "zayer", which means absolutely nothing if taken as a noun in Arabic comes from the fact that the man who rebuilt the city was called Ziri. And he was a Berber prince. "Zayer" therefore would mean "Ziri's city". - To make matters worse, those who support Arabic identity and the theory of "the islands" actually have a case too. There used to be 4 small islands in front of the old city which was much smaller than the modern Algiers. The old city was located in the left side of the bay on the satellite picture and it is today the Casbah district of modern Algiers. The islands got linked to the land however over centuries. The last island ceased to exist as an island in the 16th century. It was the one which the Spanish had built a massive fort with an artillery based there, from which they bombed the city continuously in order to obtain it's surrender in the 16th century. When the residents of Algiers captured the fort from the Spanish, they destroyed the fort and used its blocks to link this last island to the city. I think that was around in 1520. Over time therefore, there is no more islands left. So the origin of the name of the city is a matter of discussion between Algerians themselves. The fact that the city gave it's name to the country makes the discussion a national one. And the fact that the government which suppressed Berber culture for a decades took sides with the Arabic theory of "jazayer" (also written djazair in latin characters) has pushed many defendants of Berber culture into the arms of the theory of "zayer" or the Berber prince Buluggin ibn Ziri's city. What exactely is the truth? I personally don't know but I think that its both at the same time. Voilà for this quite Mediteranean dispute over a name :) Cordially, a resident of Algiers 82.101.153.210 06:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The Arabic version has the longer documented history, as Abu Abdullah al-Bakri writing in the 11th century calls it "the islands" belonging some tribe I forget who. And I've also seen it somewhere that the Phoenician name Ikosim meant seagull islands. Anyway, is it not odd that neither Arab nor Berber explanation of the name is given in the article, but another one? MisterCDE 05:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Richest city

Algiers is the richest city in the Maghreb, not Casablanca. Anwar 14:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section moved grom page for cleanup

[edit] Years 2000

Nowadays, in 2007, Algiers wants to become again a large capital African and Mediterranean Sea, planning to have a level of development of the infrastructures comparable with that which it had in 1962. It undertakes an opening towards the world by organizing many demonstrations and international conferences. Algiers has attracted thus for a few years of great multinationals such as Crossroads, Yves Rocher, or Quick. Many great projects of realization of infrastructures such as subway of Algiers, it tram like various projects of urban reorganization, of creation of new satellite urban centres, pain to be born, though they should have been completed there is more than 15 years: Algiers is in full urban development, moved by a need for assertion at the regional level in its fight to compete with the other North-African cities of Tunisia and of Morocco. For the year 2007, Algiers is capital “Arab culture”. On April 11, 2007, one Attacks of Algiers of April 11, 2007 double atttendants to the bomb aims at the palate of the government (where seat the Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior Department) and the police station of Bab-Ezzouar. These attacks are asserted by Organization Al-Qaïda in the Islamic Maghreb.

I can't make head or tail of this. Perhaps a machine translation. Rmhermen 01:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 'The Largest city in the Maghreb'

If I am comparing the cities/ urban areas/ metropolitan areas of both Algiers and Casablanca, than Casablanca is coming out as the 'largest' (in terms of population). So I changed the sentence that 'the urban area of Algiers is the largest in the Maghreb', to 'the urban area of Algiers is one of the largest in the Maghreb (behind Casablanca)'. --Robster1983 15:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Machine translation?

It looks like this is a machine translation of the french article, like the article about Oran. I think it should be reverted to this [1] revision, or any similair revision, until we get a "human translation"? --escondites 22:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I've done some extensive copy editing of the article, particularly the history section. I am posting my translation of the "Years 2000" section that looked like a google translation of the equivalent section of the French article on Algiers. I removed some info and POV but a translation can't work miracles, the source text itself is not the greatest... Anyways, here it is, let me know what you think.

Algiers in the 21st Century

Today, in 2007, Algiers is seeking to once again become an important African and Mediterranean capital, envisioning having a comparable level of infrastructure development to what it had in 1962 relative to other countries. Algiers is opening itself up to the world by hosting a variety of international conferences and events. This new openness has attracted the investment of a number of multinational companies in recent years, such as: Carrefour, Yves Rocher, and even Quick. However, many large infrastructure projects are struggling to be completed: the Algiers subway, the tramway, urban renewal projects, the creation of new urban centers on the periphery. The current infrastructure has not been able to keep up with Algier's rapid growth.

2007 has brought mixed results for Algiers. On the postive side the city has been named the capital of "Arab culture" for 2007. On the negative side, a double bombing attack ocurred on April 11 with one bomb targeting the government building housing the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior; and another bomb targeting the police station in Bab-Ezzouar. The attacks were claimed by an organization calling themselves the Maghreb branch of Al-Qaida.

Algiers is currently ranked lowest out of 132 capitals in the Economist Intellegince Unit's quality of life survey. The survey takes into consideration 40 different criteria divided into 5 categories: stability, health services, culture and environment, education, and the availability of basic services. Algiers was ranked lower than such cities as Karachi (Pakistan), Tripoli (Libya), Abidjan (Côte-d'Ivoire), and even Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. In 2005 the same survey ranked Algiers 125th out of 129 cities. Vrac 07:17, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Someone needs to do some major editing here....

This is terrible. The grammar and punctuation in the later parts are atrocious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.247.165.195 (talk) 21:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)