Béjaïa, Algeria and Cap Carbon Lighthouse

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2 years ago Robin

Algeria is a North African country with a 1280 km long coastline on the southwestern shore of the Mediterranean opposite France and Spain.
French troops landed there in 1830 and the country remained a French colony through World War II.
A bitter struggle in the 1950s led to its independence in 1962.
Arabic is an official language of Algeria and most residents speak a variety of Arabic called Darja. French is widely used in government and media and more than half of the population also speaks French. The Arabic word for a lighthouse is mnarh or manara (منارة), phare in French.
Aids to navigation in Algeria are operated by the Office National de Signalisation Maritime (ONSM).

Béjaïa, formerly Bougie and Bugia, is a Mediterranean port city on the Gulf of Béjaïa, and it is the capital of Béjaïa Province, Kabylia, northeastern Algeria.
Sheltered by Mount Gouraya (660 meters) and Cape Carbon, it is surrounded by a fertile plain.
The older town, built on the mountain slope, descends to the French-built sector spread along the road to Algiers and containing the business and industrial quarters.
Ruins remain of the small Roman veterans’ town of Saldae and of the successive Berber settlement of the Bejaïa tribe, which gained importance as a fortified Ḥammādid capital in 1067.
During the Middle Ages, Bougie was a pirate stronghold and was contested by various powers.
It traded with Europe and introduced the wax candle, not by chance bougie, in French.
The Spanish occupation (1510–55), the town’s subsequent capture by the Turks, and the predominance of Algiers relegated the port to minor importance until the French occupation (1833) and the improvement of its harbour (1905–09).
The modern Bejaïa is a busy market town for the Kabylie area and exports minerals (iron ore, phosphates), foodstuffs (olive oil, wine), and cork. After 1959, with the arrival of the oil pipeline from Hassi Messaoud, it became a leading port for the shipment of crude oil from the Sahara.

Cap Carbon Lighthouse is a historical lighthouse located in the Cape Carbon on top of a rocky outcrop overlooking the port of Béjaïa.
The lighthouse, which was built by French in 1906 AD, is one of the highest in the entire Mediterranean basin and, at 220m above sea level, it is also considered the highest natural lighthouse in the world.