Tolga ( ar, طولقة) is a municipality in

Biskra Province Biskra ( ar, ولاية بسكرة) is a province (''wilaya'') of Algeria. The capital city is Biskra. Tolga is one of the famous ''daïras'' of this wilaya. Other localities include Lichoua, Sidi Okba, Sidi Khaled, El-Kantara and Ouled Djella ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. Located in south-east Algeria, 363 km south of the capital

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...

(34° 43' 00" N and 5° 23' 00" E). Tolga is well known internationally for high-quality

dates Date or dates may refer to: *Date (fruit), the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'') Social activity *Dating, a form of courtship involving social activity, with the aim of assessing a potential partner **Group dating *Play date, an ...

(

Deglet Nour Deglet Nour also spelled Deglet Noor (Modern Arabic: ; from Classical Arabic دقْلَة النُور :daqlatu (a)n-nūr - literally, "date-palm of light"; "heavenly date"; from Classical Arabic daqal, a kind of date palm) named also Royal D ...

). It has more than 500,000 date palm trees. Most dates produced are exported.

History

FROBENIUS(1911) Tafel47 Speicherturm in Tolga, am Nordrand dsr Sahara

The Tolga Oasis was occupied by the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

s during republican times and a small

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

established at

Lioua Lioua ( ar, ليوة) is a town and Communes of Algeria, commune in Ourlal District, of Biskra Province, Algeria. According to the 1998 census it had a population of 15,960, but this had grown to 21,416 in 2008. The town is on the edge of the Saha ...

about 8 km

south South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

. Large rectangular stones from the

Roman era 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 ...

have been found in old Tolga testify to their presence in the

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

. The city was the headquarters of the powerful Confederation of Dhouaouda and Ryah from Beni Hilal, a

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...

clan from southern

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

where they have migrated under the leadership of the

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dy ...

s between the

10th 10 (ten) is the even natural number following 9 and preceding 11. Ten is the base of the decimal numeral system, by far the most common system of denoting numbers in both spoken and written language. It is the first double-digit number. The rea ...

and 11th centuries. Dattes de Deglet nour à Tolga (Wilaya de Biskra)

According to the

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

and geographer

Al-Bakri Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī ( ar, أبو عبيد عبد الله بن عبد العزيز بن محمد بن أيوب بن عمرو البكري), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1 ...

, ''"Tolga north of Bentious, consists of several cities (...) One of those cities is inhabited by people of mixed blood, the other by Arabs of

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

i origin, and the third by a people belonging to Qays. "''

References

Communes of Biskra Province {{Biskra-geo-stub