A history of the wilaya of Constantine

Cirta, capital of Numidia

By the 3rd century BC the town of Constantine, then called Cirta, was one of the main towns of Numidia. The kings of the Massyli, one of the Numidian peoples, lived there. Cirta was the capital of the Numidian kingdom.

Nearly 1,000 carved standing stones called Punic stelae were found at the El Hofra site in Constantine. Some are kept at the Cirta National Museum, an archaeological museum, and others at the Louvre. The Louvre dates its stelae from El Hofra from the late 3rd century to the middle of the 1st century BC.

Rome and the city of Constantine

After the defeat of the Numidian king Jugurtha, Cirta came under Roman rule for 4 centuries. In 313 the emperor Constantine I had the town rebuilt and gave it his name.

From the Arab states to the Ottomans

Arabs reached the city in the 7th century, and it then belonged in turn to the Aghlabid, Fatimid, Hammadid and Hafsid states. In the 16th century the Ottoman state made Constantine the seat of the beylik of the East, a province. Its bey, or governor, answered to the dey, the ruler of Algiers.

French rule over the city began in 1837, and after independence Constantine became the chief city of the Constantinois, in eastern Algeria.

Towns and villages

Roman remains survive in the area of Ibn Ziad. On the slopes of Djebel Cheikh Zouaoui stands the zaouia of Cheikh Zouaoui, a religious school and lodge, with its own Quranic school.

Founded in 1854, Aïn Smara was later part of the commune of Oued Athmania. In the territorial division of 1984 it became the seat of its own commune.

Under French rule Aïn Abid was a commune of the department of Constantine, and the town has kept that name. Its colonial quarter was the subject of a 2019 urban planning study at Université Constantine 3.

The Hamma plain

The gardens of the Hamma plain are part of the identity of Hamma Bouziane. A 2022 study at Université Constantine 3 says they long supplied Constantine with farm produce. An account from the colonial period describes the view from the Sidi M'Cid bridge down to the plain, with its wheat fields and orchards.

Mohamed Salah Mentouri was born in Hamma Bouziane on 9 April 1940 and died in Algiers in September 2010. From 1984 to 1988, and again from 1989 to 1993, he was president of the Algerian Olympic Committee.

The independence movement

Zighoud Youcef was born in Smendou, today Zighoud Youcef, and worked there as a blacksmith. In 1938 he became the first local official of the Algerian People's Party (PPA) in Smendou. He died in September 1956 at Sidi Mezghiche, in the wilaya of Skikda.

A new town

Created in 2000, the new town of Ali Mendjeli spreads across 2 communes, El-Khroub and Aïn Smara. It is named after Ali Mendjeli, a fighter of the war of independence.

Université Salah Boubnider Constantine 3 was created by executive decree on 28 November 2011. Its campus stands in an extension of Ali Mendjeli, 13 km from Constantine.