Béjaïa


Béjaïa, formerly Bougie and Bugia, is a Mediterranean port city on the Gulf of Béjaïa in Algeria; it is the capital of Béjaïa Province, Kabylia. Béjaïa is the largest principally Kabyle-speaking city in the Kabylie region of Algeria.

Geography

The town is overlooked by the mountain Yemma Gouraya, whose profile is said to resemble a sleeping woman. Other nearby scenic spots include the Aiguades beach and the Pic des Singes ; the latter site is a habitat for the endangered Barbary macaque, which prehistorically had a much broader distribution than at present. All three of these geographic features are located in the Gouraya National Park. The Soummam river runs past the town.
Under French rule, it was formerly known under various European names, such as Budschaja in German, Bugia in Italian, and Bougie in French. The French and Italian versions, due to the town's wax trade, eventually acquired the metonymic meaning of "candle".

History

Antiquity and Byzantine era

According to Al-Bakri, the bay was first inhabited by Andalusians.
Béjaïa stands on the site of the ancient city of Saldae, a minor port in Carthaginian and Roman times, in an area at first inhabited by Numidian Berbers and founded as a colony for old soldiers by emperor Augustus. It was an important town and a bishopric in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis, and later Sitifensis.
, with ornamental Kufic script, from Béjaïa hi, 1249–1276.
In the fifth century, Saldae became the capital of the short-lived Vandal Kingdom of the Germanic Vandals, which ended in about 533 with the Byzantine conquest, which established an African prefecture and later the Exarchate of Carthage.

Muslim and feudal rulers

After the 7th-century Muslim conquest, it was refounded as "Béjaïa"; the Hammadid dynasty made it their capital, and it became an important port and centre of culture.
The son of a Pisan merchant, posthumously known as Fibonacci, there learned about mathematics and Hindu-Arabic numerals. He introduced modern mathematics into medieval Europe. A mathematical-historical analysis of Fibonacci's context and proximity to Béjaïa, an important exporter of wax in his time, has suggested that it was actually the bee-keepers of Béjaïa and the knowledge of the bee ancestries that truly inspired the Fibonacci sequence rather than the rabbit reproduction model as presented in his famous book Liber Abaci.
According to Muhammad al-Idrisi, the port was, in the 11th century, a market place between Mediterranean merchant ships and caravans coming from the Sahara desert. Christian merchants settled fundunqs in Bejaïa. The Italian city of Pisa was closely tied to Béjaïa, where it built one of its two permanent consulates in the African continent.
In 1315, Ramon Llull died as a result of being stoned at Béjaïa, where, a few years before, Peter Armengaudius is reputed to have been hanged.
After a Spanish occupation, the city was taken by the Ottoman Turks in the Capture of Bougie in 1555. For nearly three centuries, Béjaïa was a stronghold of the Barbary pirates. The city consisted of Arabic-speaking Moors, Moriscos and Jews increased by Jewish refugees from Spain, with the Berber peoples not in the city but occupying the surrounding villages and travelling to the city occasionally for the market days.
City landmarks include a 16th-century mosque and a fortress built by the Spanish in 1545.
A picture of the Orientalist painter Maurice Boitel, who painted in the city for a while, can be found in the museum of Béjaïa.

French colonial rule

It was captured by the French in 1833 and became a part of colonial Algeria. Most of the time it was the seat of an arrondissement in the Département of Constantine, until Bougie was promoted to département itself in 1957.

Battle of Béjaïa

During World War II, Operation Torch landed forces in North Africa, including a battalion of the British Royal West Kent Regiment at Béjaïa on 11 November 1942.
That same day, at 4:40 PM, a German Luftwaffe air raid struck Béjaïa with thirty Ju 88 bombers and torpedo planes. The transports and Cathay were sunk and the monitor HMS Roberts was damaged. The following day, the anti-aircraft ship SS Tynwald was torpedoed and sank, while the transport Karanja was bombed and destroyed.

Algerian republic

After Algerian independence, it became the eponymous capital of Béjaïa Province, covering part of the eastern Berber region Kabylia.

Ecclesiastical history

With the spread of Christianity, Saldae became a bishopric. Its bishop Paschasius was one of the Catholic bishops whom the Arian Vandal king Huneric summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled.
Christianity survived the Arab conquest, the disappearance of the old city of Saldae, and the founding of the new city of Béjaïa. A letter from Pope Gregory VII exists, addressed to clero et populo Buzee, in which he writes of the consecration of a bishop named Servandus for Christian North Africa.
No longer a residential bishopric, Saldae is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. and still has incumbents by that title.

Titular see of Bugia

This titular see was for a long time, alternatively and concurrently with the city's authentic Roman Latin name Saldae, called Bugia, the Italian language form of Béjaïa.
The 'modern' form and title, Bugia, seems out of use, after having had the following incumbents, all of the lowest rank :
Béjaïa, like most cities along the coast of Algeria, has a Mediterranean climate, with very warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters.

Demography

The population of the city in 2008 in the latest census was 177,988.
YearPopulation
190114,600
190617,500
191110,000
192119,400
192615,900
193125,300
193630,700
194828,500
195443,900
196063,000
196649,900
1974104,000
197774,000
1987114,500
1998144,400
2008177,988

Economy

The northern terminus of the Hassi Messaoud oil pipeline from the Sahara, Béjaïa is the principal oil port of the Western Mediterranean. Exports, aside from crude petroleum, include iron, phosphates, wines, dried figs, and plums. The city also has textile and cork industries.
Cevital has its head office in the city.
The city's soccer team is JSM Béjaïa and currently plays in the Algerian Ligue Professionnelle 2.

Friendly relationship

Béjaïa has an official friendly relationship with: