Ethnic groups in Algeria

Ethnic groups of Algeria [1]
Ethnic groups percent
Arab-Berber
  
 99%
European
  
 1%

Ethnic groups including Berbers, Arabs, French people, Turks and Saharan Africans have contributed to the ethnic make-up of Algeria.[2]

Arab-Berber make up the majority ( 99%) of Algeria's inhabitants. Although almost all Algerians are Berber in origin (not Arab), only a minority identify themselves as Berber, about 15% of the total population.[3]

Berbers

Berbers are the indigenous population of Algeria. Beginning with the Numidian kingdom till the Middle-Ages. Berbers had extensive historical relationships with both Romans and Phoenicians who eventually build Carthage in their own lands. Partially Romanized and Christian during the Roman Empire, the Berbers and their lands were Islamized in the 7th century with the expansion of the Umayyad Empire from Syria. Previous Roman-Berber cities gradually began to become Arabo-Berber cities where an Arabo-Islamic culture was involved. Arabization was considered as a low phenomenon, mostly due to cultural and economical exchanges between the new Maghreb and the old Mashreq of the Arab world until the 12th century with the invasion of the Bedouin tribe Banu Hilal expanded their cultural influence towards the inland areas. Within the few centuries later, the linguistical Arabization of the Maghreb became much more important and dominant.


The Berber-speaking Algerians are divided into many subgroups. The Kabyles, or Kaba’il, mostly farmers, live in the compact mountainous section in the northern part of the country between Algiers and Constantine. The Chaouia, or Shawiyyah, live in the Aurès Mountains of the northeast region. The Chenouas and various similar Zenata groups used to occupy a very large area from Central Algeria to Western Algeria. The Mzab, or Mozabites, include sedentary date growers in the Ued Mzab oasis. Desert groups include the Tuareg and Tuat.

Turkish

2008 estimates of the Turkish community in Algeria range from 600,000 to 2 million.[4] In 1953, Sabri Hizmetli claimed that people of Turkish origin make up 25% of Algeria's population.[5] However, in 2008, the Oxford Business Group gave a more prudent estimate, according to its report, 5% of Algeria's population, accounting to about 1,740,000 people, are of Turkish descent.[6]

Other ethnic groups

Other ethnic groups in Algeria include Europeans of French (Corsican), Spaniards, Italians, and Maltese ancestry, who are estimated at less than 1 percent of the population in 2005. Algeria was also the home of a significant Jewish community, most who fled after Algeria's independence, with about 70,000 Jews emigrating to France and 10,000 to Israel in that period. Almost all the rest left Algeria during the next seven years and fewer than 100 Jews remained in Algeria as of 1998.

In addition, several Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria's south-western Tindouf Province house approximately 165,000 Sahrawi refugees, of whom 90,000 are deemed "vulnerable" and receive assistance from the United Nations and humanitarian aid from the European Union and other donors.[7][8][9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Africa :: ALGERIA". CIA The World Factbook. Archived from the original on 2010-01-17.
  2. ↑ UNESCO (2009). "Diversité et interculturalité en Algérie" (PDF). UNESCO. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 25, 2013.
  3. ↑ "The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency". www.cia.gov. Archived from the original on 2010-01-17. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  4. ↑ Turkish Embassy in Algeria (2008). "Cezayir Ülke Raporu 2008". Ministry of Foreign Affairs. p. 4. Archived from the original on September 29, 2013.
  5. ↑ Hizmetli, Sabri (1953), "Osmanlı Yönetimi Döneminde Tunus ve Cezayir’in Eğitim ve Kültür Tarihine Genel Bir Bakış" (PDF), Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 32 (0): 10
  6. ↑ Oxford Business Group (2008), The Report: Algeria 2008, Oxford Business Group, p. 10
  7. ↑ http://reporting.unhcr.org/node/7039
  8. ↑ http://ec.europa.eu/echo/node/319
  9. ↑ https://drc.dk/where-we-work/middle-east-and-north-africa/algeria
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