The national park of Djurdjura ( ar, الحديقة الوطنية جرجرة) is one of the

national parks of Algeria National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

. It is located in

Kabylie Kabylia ('' Kabyle: Tamurt n Leqbayel'' or ''Iqbayliyen'', meaning "Land of Kabyles", '','' meaning "Land of the Tribes") is a cultural, natural and historical region in northern Algeria and the homeland of the Kabyle people. It is part of th ...

and is named after the

Djurdjura Range The Djurdjura or Jurjura Range ( ar, جبال جرجرة, ''Jabal Jurjura''; Berber ''Adrar n Jerjer'') is a mountain range of the Tell Atlas, part of the Atlas Mountain System. It is located in Kabylie, Algeria. Geography The Djurdjura is a m ...

of the

Tell Atlas The Tell Atlas ( ar, الاطلس التلي, Latn, ar, al-ʾaṭlas al-tlī) is a mountain chain over in length, belonging to the Atlas mountain ranges in North Africa, stretching mainly across northern Algeria, with ends in both north-easter ...

Description

Nearby cities include

Tizi Ouzou Tizi Ouzou or Thizi Wezzu (, Kabyle: Tizi Wezzu) is a city in north central Algeria. It is among the largest cities in Algeria. It is the second most populous city in the Kabylie region after Bejaia. History Etymology The name ''Tizi Ouzou' ...

to the north and Bouïra to the south. The park is home to a very broken

tectonics Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...

, as well as many

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s, grottoes, gorges, and important

fauna Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology ...

, including the

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

Barbary macaque, '' Macaca sylvanus'', a primate whose prehistoric distribution in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

was much broader than today.

Name

The name of the

mountain chain A mountain chain is a row of high mountain summits, a linear sequence of interconnected or related mountains,Whittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, p 87. . or a contiguous ridge of mountains within a larger m ...

comes from the Kabyle word ''Jjerjer'' which means "great cold" or "elevation", from the old

compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when ...

''Jer n Jer'' "the mountain of the mountains".''Énigmes et joutes oratoires de Kabylie'' by Youcef Allioui, L'Harmattan, 2005 The

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...

used to call it

Iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

mountain in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

(''Mons Ferratus''), in reference to the soil of the region, as well as to the resistance of the Kabyles against the Roman annexation of Kabylie. The name Djurdjura is also used for the villages located in this mountain chain. ''Mmis n'Djerdjer'' means "children of the Djurdjura", which is a Kabyle word referring to mountain inhabitants, there is also a Kabyle female group called ''DjurDjura''. Thaletyel

Merveilleux printemps (Djurdjura National Park)

References

External links

*
Algerian Ministry of Forestry - National park of Djurdjura

Park data on UNEP-WPMC
{{authority control National parks of Algeria Protected areas of Algeria Protected areas established in 1983 Geography of Bouïra Province Tourist attractions in Bouïra Province 1983 establishments in Algeria