Annaba

Annaba began as a Punic trading post on the bay, took the name Hippo under Numidian kings and became Hippo Regius, a royal residence and later a Roman colony that grew rich on the grain and olive oil of the Seybouse valley. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most influential writers of early Christianity, was its bishop from 396 until he died in 430 while a Vandal army besieged the city. Hippo declined after the Vandal and Arab conquests, and the population moved to the more defensible slope a few kilometres north, around which the medieval town of Bouna grew.

Under the Hafsids and then the Ottoman Regency of Algiers the town lived from coral fishing, grain exports and trade with Europe; French, Genoese and other merchants kept concessions along this coast for centuries. French forces took the town in 1832, in the early years of the conquest, and rebuilt it as Bône, with a grid of boulevards, the Cours de la Révolution at its centre and a new artificial harbour.

After independence in 1962 the city was renamed Annaba and became one of the industrial capitals of the new state. The El Hadjar steelworks, a few kilometres south of the city, and the export of phosphate brought by rail from the mines of the far east made the port one of the busiest in the country and drew tens of thousands of people from the countryside. The city spread south across the plain, the steel complex was privatised in 2001 and brought back under state control in 2013, and tourism along the corniche has become a larger part of the economy.

Annaba is known within Algeria as an easy-going city, its manner shaped by the sea, the port and a long history of contact with Europe. The evening walk along the Cours de la Révolution, under the trimmed ficus trees, is a civic ritual, and the cafés around it are the city's public living room.

Musically the region belongs to malouf and its lighter local forms, played on oud, violin and percussion at weddings and festivals, alongside the popular styles heard everywhere in Algeria. The regional theatre keeps a strong tradition of Algerian drama in Arabic, and the city has produced writers and singers out of proportion to its size. Football matters greatly, and the local club's matches are followed with intensity across the eastern districts.

Religious life is Sunni Islam of the Maliki school, with Friday prayer, Ramadan and the great feasts shaping the calendar. At the same time Annaba carries a Christian history that is unusual in the region and openly acknowledged: Augustine is a figure of local pride as much as of religion, and his basilica on the hill is a landmark for the whole city. Family life, long meals, henna nights before weddings and the exchange of sweets at Eid are central to social life here as elsewhere in the east.

About 264,000 people were counted in the city in 2019, with roughly a million in the wider metropolitan area, especially El Bouni and the estates that spread south towards the Seybouse. The population is young, and the university draws students from across the east.

Heavy industry still sets the tone of the local economy. The steelworks at El Hadjar, the fertiliser and chemical plants and the port, which ships phosphate, steel and agricultural produce, employ large numbers directly and indirectly, and their fortunes have risen and fallen with state investment. Fishing, farming in the Seybouse plain, trade and summer tourism fill in the rest. Unemployment among younger people is high, and emigration across the Mediterranean is a recurring subject.

Daily rhythm follows the heat and the calendar: early markets, a long afternoon break in summer, and a crowded seafront in the evening. Winter is wetter than almost anywhere else in the country, and the city can feel grey and damp for weeks. Air and water quality near the industrial zone, housing pressure and traffic on the corniche in summer are the everyday complaints, while the beaches, the Edough forests above the bay and a long tradition of eating fish are what residents say they would not trade.

Annaba eats from the sea. Sardines, anchovies, bream, bonito and calamari come in to the port and the small harbours along the coast, and the ordinary way to eat them is grilled over charcoal with bread and a salad of tomato and onion, or floured and fried. Sardines stuffed with garlic, parsley, cumin and a little harissa, then pressed in pairs and fried, are a western Mediterranean dish that this coast has made its own.

Away from the water, the food is eastern Algerian. Couscous with lamb, chickpeas and seasonal vegetables is the Friday dish; chorba frik, the green-wheat and tomato soup, breaks the fast in Ramadan; and chakhchoukha, torn flatbread in a spiced lamb sauce, arrives from the plateaus inland. Stuffed vegetables, bourek pastry rolls and merguez sausages are everyday food, and the Seybouse plain supplies tomatoes, peppers, melons and citrus to the markets.

Sweets and bread carry both traditions. Neighbourhood bakeries turn out baguettes and croissants alongside flat kesra and semolina breads, and patisseries sell makroud filled with dates, baklawa and honey-soaked griwech, in quantity before Eid and for weddings. Coffee is strong and black, mint tea is poured long, and freshly squeezed orange juice is a winter fixture when the local citrus comes in.