Department of Constantine
The Département de Constantine was a French department in Algeria that existed from 1848 to 1962.
prehistory
The Second French Republic emerged from the February Revolution . It began on February 25, 1848. After a brief period of coexistence between left and liberal forces, the moderate liberals prevailed, especially after the June uprising in 1848. When Louis Napoleon Bonaparte won the presidential election in December 1848 , anti-revolutionary tendencies intensified.
history
Algeria was not considered a colony but part of mainland France and was officially divided into three provinces on December 9, 1848. In the ordinance of the President of the Council (Président du Conseil) of December 9, 1848 and March 16, 1849, Article 1 it said:
“The division actuelle de l'Algérie en trois provinces est maintenue. Chaque province sera divisée en territoire civil et en territoire militaire. Le territoire civil de chaque province formera un département. (Translation: The current division of Algeria into three provinces will be retained. Each province will be divided into a civil and a military territory. The civil territory of each province will form a department.) "
The three provinces corresponded to the three beyliks of the state of Algeria, which had been conquered after 1830.
The city of Constantine became the prefecture of the department that encompassed the whole of eastern Algeria. The other two were the Département d'Alger in the center of the country and the Département d'Oran in the west. The steppes and desert areas south of the Atlas Mountains were not included and formed a separate territory. At the beginning of the Third Republic (1870), the area of Algeria up to the Atlas was completely départementalized (under civil administration); the Département de Constantine then had an area of about 192,000 km².
It had several arrondissements with six sub-prefectures:
Reorganization and independence
On August 7, 1955, the department de Bône was created from the western part of the Constantine department.