The plain of Mitidja

Mitidja stretches in an arc about a hundred kilometers to the immediate outskirts of Algiers and climbs gently to the high wall of the Blida Atlas to the south. Throughout the nineteenth century, generations of settlers and Algerians have succeeded to develop this formerly marshy area and infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The conquest was painful, often fatal, but Mitidja is now one of the most beautiful agricultural plains of the country. It has fertile soils and sufficient rainfall, conditions for many crops (potatoes, rice, vines ...). Citrus nevertheless remain the main production. In the 1990s, the social and economic life of the Mitidja plain was disrupted by violent actions by armed Islamists. Using the region as a strategic corridor between the mountainous scrubland and the capital, they forced the inhabitants into exile. Today, people have returned to their land and agricultural activity restarts.