Tagged the ‘Town of a Thousand Domes’, El-Oued is the major town of the Souf region in the Grand Erg Oriental. Most of the buildings have domes, built to alleviate the summer heat. The town is also famous for its carpets, which often bear the traditional cross of the Souf. The daily souq in the old part of town is at its most animated on Friday.
Algeria’s weather varies significantly between the north and south. The mountainous Tell region in the north has warm, sticky summers and mild winters with substantial rainfall. In the south, summer days are very hot and dry, but nights can be chilly.
Apart from the weather and a sprinkling of local festivals, the most important consideration for when to visit is the holy month of Ramadan. Few countries take the month of fasting as seriously as Algeria does; the simple fact that Algerians break their daily fast in private homes and most restaurants close for the month should make you think seriously about avoiding travelling in Algeria for the duration. Only in five-star hotels in Algiers are you likely to find a place to eat during Ramadan.
Algiers (Arabic: الجزائر, Standard Arabic: Al Jaza’ir IPA: [ɛlʤɛˈzɛːʔir], Algerian Arabic: Dzayer ([dzæjer] (From Berber pronunciation[verification needed]), Berber: 
, Ledzayer [ldzæjər], French: Alger [ɑlʒe]) is the capital and largest city of Algeria, and the second largest city in the Maghreb (behind Casablanca). According to the 2005 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570; for the urban area was 2,135,630; for the metropolitan area 3,518,083; and for Algiers Province as a whole 5,723,749 (2006). Thus the urban area of Greater Algiers is one of the largest in North Africa[1]
Nicknamed El-Bahdja (البهجة) or Alger la Blanche (”Algiers the White”) for the glistening white of its buildings as seen rising up from the sea, Algiers is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. The city name is derived from the Arabic word al-jazā’ir, which translates as the islands, referring to the four islands which lay off the city’s coast until becoming part of the mainland in 1525. Al-jazā’ir is itself a truncated form of the city’s older name jazā’ir banī mazghannā, “the islands of (the tribe) Bani Mazghanna”, used by early medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi. Algiers is the only Algerian city with an English name different from its French name.
The modern part of the city is built on the level ground by the seashore; the old part, the ancient city of the deys, climbs the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the casbah or citadel, 400 feet (122 m) above the sea. The casbah and the two quays form a triangle.
Algeria (Arabic: الجزائر, Al Jaza’ir IPA: [ælʤæˈzæːʔir], Berber: 
, Dzayer [ldzæjər]), officially the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, is the second largest country on the African continent[1] and the 11th largest country in the world in terms of total area.[2] It is bordered by Tunisia in the northeast, Libya in the east, Niger in the southeast, Mali and Mauritania in the southwest, a few kilometers of the Western Sahara in the west, Morocco in the northwest, and the Mediterranean Sea in the north.
Algeria is a member of the United Nations, African Union, Arab League, and OPEC. It also contributed towards the creation of the Arab Maghreb Union. Constitutionally, Algeria is defined as an Islamic, Arab, and Amazigh (Berber) country
