Maghnia () (formerly Marnia) is a town in
Tlemcen Province, northwestern
Algeria. It is the second most populated town in Tlemcen Province, after
Tlemcen. The current population is over 200,000.
History
Archaeologists
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
have found evidence of prehistoric people in the area, who were displaced by the
Phoenicians. The remnants of burned
Ancient Roman
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
military posts were discovered by the
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
army in 1836, when they entered the area; these posts were occupied, according to the inscriptions, by the ''numerus Severianus Alexandrinus Syrorum'',
a unit of
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
n
archers. As such, it was the westernmost outpost of
Mauretania Caesariensis
Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for "Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in what is now Algeria in the Maghreb. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell).
The province had been part of the Kingd ...
.
Due to its convenient geographical location—within the
watershed
Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to:
Hydrology
* Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins
* Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
of
Wadi Tafna on the route to
Fes
Fez or Fes (; ar, فاس, fās; zgh, ⴼⵉⵣⴰⵣ, fizaz; french: Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 mi ...
from
Tlemcen, Maghnia later served as a
marketplace for regional
nomads.
Notable people
*
Ahmed ben Bella, the first
President of independent Algeria, was born in Maghnia in 1916.
*
Sid Ahmed Ghozali, politician
*
Emma Vecla (1877–1972), French operatic soprano
*
Mahboub Bachir, Moudjahid
References
Communes of Tlemcen Province
Algeria–Morocco border crossings
{{Tlemcen-geo-stub