Touggourt
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تقرت(Tuqurt) ⵜⵓⴳⵓⵔⵜ (Tugurt) Touggourt |
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| Coordinates | 33 ° 0 ′ N , 6 ° 4 ′ E | ||
 Location in the province of Ouargla |
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| Basic data | |||
| Country | Algeria | ||
| Ouargla | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | DZ-30 | ||
| Residents | 70,000 | ||
Touggourt ( Arabic تقرت, DMG Tuqurt ; tamazight ⵜⵓⴳⵓⵔⵜ, entrance or gate ) is a small town in the province of Ouargla in northeast Algeria .
geography
Touggourt is located on the northwestern edge of the Eastern Great Erg in the Algerian Sahara and is surrounded by the pale yellow sand typical of this landscape. Sand funnels interrupt the dune landscape and individual palm trees rise from it. In this area one also often encounters the bizarre crystal structures of the Sahara sand rose . The houses in the vicinity on the route to El Oued are covered with domes and barrel vaults. Occasionally one comes across draw wells ( khottaras ).
history
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Legend has it that the Touggourt oasis was founded by the courtesan T'gg'rt after she was driven out of her home oasis due to her casual lifestyle and offered hospitality to a holy man in her tent.
In the past, Touggourt was important as a hub in the Trans-Saharan trade . The city was also the headquarters of the Ouled Djellab dynasty. Before the colonization by the French in the 19th century, their tribal leaders had ruled the oasis since the 15th century.
The oasis city was the starting point for the first motorized expedition projects André Citroën through the Sahara in December 1922. The French or Belgian adventurer and expedition leader Louis Audouin-Dubreuil and Georges-Marie Haardt journeyed to five Citroën - half-tracks to Timbuktu in Mali to arrive. The route led over the grueling Tamanrasset route in the Ahaggar Mountains. The crew arrived in Timbuktu just three weeks later. A stele in the center of the village still commemorates this successful event.
Today the place shows a modern face with cube-shaped new buildings in the northern Algerian style.
population
Around 70,000 people live in the city, which is also the largest metropolis in the region. The population is made up of different tribes, such as the Ouled Nail , which is widespread in Algeria, and the Ouled Djari, who were originally of Jewish descent .
Economy and Transport
Touggourt is the southern terminus of a railway line from Constantine . In the 1950s, oil deposits around Hassi Messaoud, 170 kilometers to the south, were developed and, from 1957, pumped to Touggourt via a pipeline . There the oil was loaded onto tank trucks and transported on to the Skikda export port . Today the oil flows through a pipeline directly to Skikda.
About 95 kilometers by road northeast of the oasis in the direction of the Tunisian border is El Oued with a regional airport.
Festivals
The date festival is celebrated in April / May. The festival coincides with the fertilization time of the date palms.
See also
literature
- Ariane Audouin-Dubreuil, Expedition Africa, Frederking Thaler, ISBN 3-89405-485-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Birgit Agada, Adolf Schuster: Algeria. 2010, p. 233.
- ↑ Peter Fuchs , People of the Desert , p. 145 f. Georg Westermann Verlag, Braunschweig 1991, ISBN 3-07-509266-5 .
- ↑ Ariane Audouin-Dubreuil, Expedition Africa, p. 9 (see lit.)
- ↑ Touggourt. In: Anthony Ham, Nana Luckham, Anthony Sattin: Algeria. Lonely Planet, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-74179-099-3 . (English)
- ^ Birgit Agada, Adolf Schuster: Algeria. Trescher Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-89794-155-7 , pp. 233-235.
- ^ Birgit Agada, Adolf Schuster: Algeria. 2010, p. 100.