2954 ALGERIA - National Carpet Festival in Ghardaïa

Located in the Sahara Desert, Ghardaïa is part of a pentapolis, a hilltop city amongst four others, built almost a thousand years ago in the M'zab Valley (Wadi Mzab) by the Mozabites (At Mzab), a branch of a large Berber tribe, the Iznaten, which lived in large areas of middle southern Algeria. After the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, the Mozabites became Muslims of the Mu'tazili school. After the fall of the Rostemid state, the Rostemid royal family with some of their citizens chose the M'zab Valley as their refuge. Besides, the valley was inscribed under the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1982.

1141 ALGERIA - Women from the south of Algeria in traditional clothes

As in other Maghreb countries, the majority of people from Algeria are Berbers in origins, and many of them identifies with an Arabic-based culture. Even if nine out of ten algerians live along the northern coastal region, in the Saharan regions of the south there are still some nomadic or semi-nomadic communities. Most people speak a North African dialect of Arabic known as darja, but education and the written language are in classical Arabic.