Médéa () is the capital city of Médéa Province,

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. It is located roughly 68 km south of

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

. The present-day city is situated on the site of an

ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

military post and has a history dating back to the 10th century. The town is French in character, with a rectangular city plan, red tile-roofed buildings, and beautiful public gardens. The hills surrounding Médéa are covered with vineyards, orchards, and farms that yield abundant

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

. Médéa's chief products are wines, irrigation equipment, and various handicrafts.

Etymology

Medea is a Roman city named ad ''Medix'' or ''Media'' ("halfway" in Latin), so called because it was equidistant from Tirinadi ( Berrouaghia) and Sufnsar (

Amourah Amourah, or Amoura is a town and Latin Catholic titular bishopric in Algeria. The Communes of Algeria, commune lies in Djelfa Province. According to the 1998 census it has a population of 5,879. History Amaura corresponds to Classical antiquity ...

) rest house of Mauretania caesarean on the road linking the capital Caesarea (

Cherchell Cherchell () is a town on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, west of Algiers. It is the seat of Cherchell District in Tipaza Province. Under the names Iol and Caesarea, it was formerly a Roman colony and the capital of the kingdoms of Numidia ...

) to the colony Auzia ( Aumale).

History

During the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

there was a settlement called Lamdia at Médéa. Lamdia was the

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but may also refer to concentrations of power in a wider sense (i.e " seat (legal entity)"). See disambiguation. Types of seat The ...

of an

ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient h ...

Christian

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

of the

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

Mauretania Caesariensis Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for "Caesarea, Numidia, Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in present-day Algeria. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea, Numidia, Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell). The province had ...

. Only one bishop of the town is known. The

Donatist Donatism was a schism from the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to ...

Felix attended the 411 Conference of Carthage. The town at that time had no Catholic bishops. Today Lamdia survives as a

titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

ric of the Roman Church and the current bishop is Marian Eleganti, bishop of Chur. Following the defeat of the

Berbers Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connec ...

in the 11th century,

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

tribes of Hilal and Sulaym descent were settled in the region, mixing with and Arabicizing the local Berbers. Médéa was the capital of the Beylik of Titteri; a Bey, deputy of the Dey of Algiers, was resident there. The beylik of Titteri (chief Medea) was established in 1548. The last Bey, Mostefa Boumezrag, ran it from 1819 to 1830, when the French arrived. In 1837, after the Treaty of Tafna, Medea became one of the capitals of the part of Algeria ruled by Abdelkader El Djezairi, but was occupied by the French when they eventually took possession of the whole of Algeria. Until 1962 Médéa was a garrison town for the French army. In the nearby village of Tibhirine is the Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas. The monastery was from 1935 to 1996 home to a

Trappist The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (, abbreviated as OCSO) and originally named the Order of Reformed Cistercians of Our Lady of La Trappe, are a Religious order (Catholic), Catholic religious o ...

community when most of them were abducted by the

Armed Islamic Group The Armed Islamic Group (GIA, from ; ) was one of the two main Islamist insurgent groups that fought the Algerian government and army in the Algerian Civil War. It was created from smaller armed groups following the 1992 military coup and ar ...

on 27 March 1997. Two months later, the group announced their deaths and their heads were found though it remains uncertain as to who was responsible for their deaths. The monastery buildings were then turned over to Chemin Neuf Community, a Catholic community originally from Lyon, France.Khettab, Djamila Ould. "Algeria's Trappist monks still spreading message of peace even after death", ''Middle East Eye'', 7 January 2019
/ref>

Climate

Economy

One of the largest pharmaceutical production units in Algeria ('' Saidal-Antibiotical'') is located in Medea. Shoe factories also established in Takbou and M'Salah. Medeaundersnow

Notable people

Mohamed Belhocine Mohamed Belhocine (; born 9 April 1951 in Tizi Ouzou) is an Algerian medical scientist and professor of internal medicine and epidemiology. Training After primary studies in Sidi Lakhdar (formerly known as Lavarande, Aïn Defla Province) and seco ...

(born 1951), Algerian medical scientist, professor of internal medicine and epidemiology. * Amine Megateli - Professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

* Jean Richepin - French poet and writer, member of

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

* Djamel Tlemçani - Professional

* Daniela Skokovic - author and librarian

References