The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, more commonly known as Algeria is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean Sea, the second largest on the African continent with the Democratic Republic of the Congo only being larger. It is the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area. Its capital and largest city is Algiers. It borders Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya, and Tunisia.
Algeria is a member of the United Nations, African Union, OPEC and the Arab League. It also contributed toward the creation of the Maghreb Union. Algeria is considered by the Berbers to be a part of the Berber World.
From about AD 1516 to 1830, Algeria was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and a safe haven for the Barbary Pirates. In 1830, France invaded, and after a brutal period of warfare, fully integrated Algeria into its empire, directly administering Algeria as a part of France proper. In 1954, Algerian rebels launched what became a war for independence, ending in 1962 with the withdrawal of French forces.
