Wilaya de Constantine, Algeria — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Wilaya de Constantine known for?

The City of Bridges rides a rock plateau split clean by the Rhummel gorge, its two halves stitched back together by spans like the Sidi M'Cid and the Sidi Rached. Ravine and viaduct set the skyline. Long before France, this was Cirta, capital of the Berber kingdom of Numidia under king Massinissa.

The old quarter still guards malouf, the Andalusi music brought here by exiles from Muslim Spain.

Where is Wilaya de Constantine?

The province sits inland in north-eastern Algeria. It lies in the Tell Atlas, the coastal mountain belt, roughly a two-hour drive from the Mediterranean at Skikda and the port cities of the north. The Rhummel River is the thread that ties it together.

It gathers on the high plains, then knifes north through Constantine in the gorge that made the city famous before running on toward the sea. Constantine itself stands on a lozenge of rock high above the water, ringed on almost every side by the drop of the ravine. Grain country rolls out beyond it.

Four provinces ring it. Skikda lies to the north and Mila to the west, with Guelma to the east and Oum El Bouaghi across the plateau to the south. Mila was cut from this territory in 1984.

Around the capital, a ring of towns fills the plain: El Khroub and Aïn Smara to the south, Hamma Bouziane and Didouche Mourad along the river, Zighoud Youcef and Aïn Abid out toward the hills. This is one of the smallest wilayas by area, dense and built-up around its one great city rather than spread thin. The land tilts from ridge to open steppe.

What is Wilaya de Constantine like?

Constantine is the Algerian capital of malouf. The style is Andalusi classical music, brought by Muslim and Jewish exiles from Spain and kept alive here in the old houses of the Casbah, where masters like Mohamed Tahar Fergani made their name. Each year a festival fills the city's concert halls with malouf ensembles drawn from across the Maghreb.

Poets and singers carry it still. In 2015 the city served as Arab Capital of Culture, a nod to a scene that leans as much on scholarship and music as on monuments. Faith and learning shape the skyline too.

The Emir Abdelkader Mosque, one of the largest in Africa, raises twin minarets over the newer town, while the Mentouri University campus below it was laid out by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. Arabic is the everyday language, with Tamazight and French both widely heard. The Cirta Museum keeps the Numidian and Roman finds turned up beneath the modern streets.

The table runs to hand-cut trida pasta, hearty chorba soup, and honey-soaked griwech from the pastry stalls of the old Souika market. Gold-thread embroidery still marks a Constantine bride.

What is the history of Wilaya de Constantine?

History here starts as Cirta. It was the royal seat of Numidia under Massinissa, then a Roman colony razed in civil war and rebuilt in 313 by the emperor Constantine, who gave it his name. Ottoman beys ruled next.

Salah Bey lined the old town with mosques and bridges in the late eighteenth century, and his works still stand above the gorge. French troops stormed the plateau in 1837 and held it until independence.

What is the climate of Wilaya de Constantine?

Summers here run hot and dry. The plateau sits high and well inland, so winters bite harder than on the Mediterranean coast, with cold rain from autumn onward and snow dusting the ridges above the Rhummel some years. July and August bake the gorge.

Spring and autumn are the gentler seasons, green on the plains before the summer heat scorches them brown.

How do you get to Wilaya de Constantine?

Most arrivals come through the air. Mohamed Boudiaf International Airport, out at Aïn el Bey south of the city near El Khroub, links Constantine with Algiers, Paris and other Mediterranean hubs. Trains climb up from the coast.

The national railway ties the city to Algiers and the port of Annaba, while the East-West Highway carries road traffic across the north. Inside Constantine, a tramway and a cable car cross the ravines the bridges do not.