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Time for a new random point: 33.75° N, 0.075° E. To a new section of Africa I knew nothing about.
Physical geography:
We are in the Hautes Plaines, which I had never heard of, but is a vast plateau in northwestern Africa lying between two ranges of the Atlas Mountains which are part of the larger Maghreb region. To the north is the Tell Atlas range separating this region from the balmy, and much more populated, Mediterranean. To the south is the Saharan Atlas separating it from the extremes of the Sahara desert. In between is a 100 mile wide, high (3,000+ feet above sea level), and dry (about 10 inches of rain annually) area of plains. It is hot in the summer reaching into the 90s, and chilly in winter, dipping just below freezing. The ecology is steppe-like here, sandy or rocky soils and low shrub like vegetation similar to sagebrush country in the American southwest. Critters are mostly small mammals (like jerboa and gundi) and reptiles (like vipers and monitors), many of them endemic to the region. You might see some gazelles if you're lucky. Unlike our previous Africa points we do regularly get rain here even if it's not much, it flows into the Wadi Tousmouline, only a mile from our point, where it will generally evaporate before really going anywhere and it'll be completely dry in summer. With an exceptional rain it's possible the water will flow to Chott Ech Chergui, which is a huge salt lake about 20 miles to the north, and it'll evaporate there. Overall a harsh and sparsely populated place, but looking pleasant compared to our last several points. This area is threatened by desertification as the Sahara expands. The Algerian government is trying to fight this with the Green Dam reforestation project that is targeting this region. Some of the forestry plots can be seen on the satellite imagery by nearby towns.
Human geography:
We're on the western edge of the Bougtob district of the El Bayadh province in Algeria, which is very rural and has a population density similar to North Dakota. Local government is the town of Tousmouline, population 3,155; with the actual town being about 15 miles to the southeast. The closest town to our point however is the similarly sized El Biodh in the neighboring Naâma province about 10 miles to the west. That is also the nearest paved road, the N6, which is a major nouth-south artery running through western Algeria and also has a passenger rail line running parallel to it. The nearest city of size is Mécheria, 25 miles to the southwest, also on the N6. It has a population around 100,000, has a small commercial airport, a professional football team, and one of the countries largest livestock markets. Conditions right at our point look to be the middle of nowhere, and it kind of is, but it's not unpopulated, there are 4x4 wheel tracks crisscrossing the area and there do appear to be widely scattered ranches out here, probably raising sheep or goats.
The earliest known peoples here were the Berbers and while the coastal regions to the north changed hands many times (Carthage, Rome, Vandals, back to Rome) the Berbers retained the interior until the Arab conquest. Arabs conquered the coast in the 600s and moved into the interior sometime in the 700s often targeting the Berbers for enslavement. The Berbers retreated to the more mountainous regions and the desert leaving the high plains to the Arabs who are still there today. Algeria would be ruled by a series of Muslim dynasties over the centuries, eventually becoming a province of the Ottoman Empire in 1515. As the Ottomans declined, Algeria became increasingly independent and when the French invaded in 1830 the Ottomans did not defend them. The French conquest of the coast left a power vacuum in the interior which was filled by Emir Abdelkader who created a de facto state that the high plains were a part of. He waged a guerrilla campaign against the French, but was eventually defeated in 1847 and the high plains area became part of French Algeria. While the French worked hard (and not all that successfully) to integrate coastal Algeria into France they largely left the interior to the Arabs, so life in the High Plains probably didn't change much. Algerian nationalism began to rise in the 1940s, helped by Algeria's role in WWII and building on Arab-French conflict, broke into a particularly brutal war of independence that lasted from 1954-1962. The high plains was a pro-independence region but probably did not see much actual fighting thanks to its remoteness. Any French settlers in the region likely fled back to mainland France. The socialist National Liberation Front that led the war would also come to rule independent Algeria and are still in power today. They ruled as a one party state until 1988, and have maintained power since while allowing limited democracy. A civil war waged unsuccessfully by Islamist factions in the 90s does not appear to have impacted the High Plains, nor has the Al-Qaeda insurgency that has risen in more recent years that is mostly limited to the desert regions.
Throughout all that the High Plains has largely been a backwater. Over 90% of Algeria's population is along the coast, so I'm sure the interior often feels forgotten. The culture of modern Algeria is a mix of Berber, Arab, and French; the High Plains area is going to be heavy on the Arab. The Religion is almost entirely Sunni Islam, the languages spoken are Arabic and French. While Algeria's economy is doing ok, thanks largely to oil and natural gas reserves, none of that is nearby, here people are just raising their goats.
Physical geography:
We are in the Hautes Plaines, which I had never heard of, but is a vast plateau in northwestern Africa lying between two ranges of the Atlas Mountains which are part of the larger Maghreb region. To the north is the Tell Atlas range separating this region from the balmy, and much more populated, Mediterranean. To the south is the Saharan Atlas separating it from the extremes of the Sahara desert. In between is a 100 mile wide, high (3,000+ feet above sea level), and dry (about 10 inches of rain annually) area of plains. It is hot in the summer reaching into the 90s, and chilly in winter, dipping just below freezing. The ecology is steppe-like here, sandy or rocky soils and low shrub like vegetation similar to sagebrush country in the American southwest. Critters are mostly small mammals (like jerboa and gundi) and reptiles (like vipers and monitors), many of them endemic to the region. You might see some gazelles if you're lucky. Unlike our previous Africa points we do regularly get rain here even if it's not much, it flows into the Wadi Tousmouline, only a mile from our point, where it will generally evaporate before really going anywhere and it'll be completely dry in summer. With an exceptional rain it's possible the water will flow to Chott Ech Chergui, which is a huge salt lake about 20 miles to the north, and it'll evaporate there. Overall a harsh and sparsely populated place, but looking pleasant compared to our last several points. This area is threatened by desertification as the Sahara expands. The Algerian government is trying to fight this with the Green Dam reforestation project that is targeting this region. Some of the forestry plots can be seen on the satellite imagery by nearby towns.
Human geography:
We're on the western edge of the Bougtob district of the El Bayadh province in Algeria, which is very rural and has a population density similar to North Dakota. Local government is the town of Tousmouline, population 3,155; with the actual town being about 15 miles to the southeast. The closest town to our point however is the similarly sized El Biodh in the neighboring Naâma province about 10 miles to the west. That is also the nearest paved road, the N6, which is a major nouth-south artery running through western Algeria and also has a passenger rail line running parallel to it. The nearest city of size is Mécheria, 25 miles to the southwest, also on the N6. It has a population around 100,000, has a small commercial airport, a professional football team, and one of the countries largest livestock markets. Conditions right at our point look to be the middle of nowhere, and it kind of is, but it's not unpopulated, there are 4x4 wheel tracks crisscrossing the area and there do appear to be widely scattered ranches out here, probably raising sheep or goats.
The earliest known peoples here were the Berbers and while the coastal regions to the north changed hands many times (Carthage, Rome, Vandals, back to Rome) the Berbers retained the interior until the Arab conquest. Arabs conquered the coast in the 600s and moved into the interior sometime in the 700s often targeting the Berbers for enslavement. The Berbers retreated to the more mountainous regions and the desert leaving the high plains to the Arabs who are still there today. Algeria would be ruled by a series of Muslim dynasties over the centuries, eventually becoming a province of the Ottoman Empire in 1515. As the Ottomans declined, Algeria became increasingly independent and when the French invaded in 1830 the Ottomans did not defend them. The French conquest of the coast left a power vacuum in the interior which was filled by Emir Abdelkader who created a de facto state that the high plains were a part of. He waged a guerrilla campaign against the French, but was eventually defeated in 1847 and the high plains area became part of French Algeria. While the French worked hard (and not all that successfully) to integrate coastal Algeria into France they largely left the interior to the Arabs, so life in the High Plains probably didn't change much. Algerian nationalism began to rise in the 1940s, helped by Algeria's role in WWII and building on Arab-French conflict, broke into a particularly brutal war of independence that lasted from 1954-1962. The high plains was a pro-independence region but probably did not see much actual fighting thanks to its remoteness. Any French settlers in the region likely fled back to mainland France. The socialist National Liberation Front that led the war would also come to rule independent Algeria and are still in power today. They ruled as a one party state until 1988, and have maintained power since while allowing limited democracy. A civil war waged unsuccessfully by Islamist factions in the 90s does not appear to have impacted the High Plains, nor has the Al-Qaeda insurgency that has risen in more recent years that is mostly limited to the desert regions.
Throughout all that the High Plains has largely been a backwater. Over 90% of Algeria's population is along the coast, so I'm sure the interior often feels forgotten. The culture of modern Algeria is a mix of Berber, Arab, and French; the High Plains area is going to be heavy on the Arab. The Religion is almost entirely Sunni Islam, the languages spoken are Arabic and French. While Algeria's economy is doing ok, thanks largely to oil and natural gas reserves, none of that is nearby, here people are just raising their goats.