proper noun

• A republic in northwestern Africa, on the Mediterranean coast; population 48,300,000 (estimated 2015); capital, Algiers; official language, Arabic.

  Algeria was colonized by France in the mid 19th century and was for a time closely integrated with metropolitan France, but following civil war in the 1950s the country achieved independence in 1962. A brief period of multiparty democracy was ended by a military takeover in 1992 after the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front had won the first round of the national elections; violent civil strife ensued until 2000, when the armed segment of the Islamic Salvation Front was dissolved