Laghouat

Population : 328.000 inhabitants

Small towns or villages close to Laghouat :
El Assafia , El Kheneg.

Origine of the name : There are two versions

1. The name of Laghouat may come from the Arab word Ghaout, which means "house surrounded by gardens" : El-Aghouat plural.
2. Ibn Khaldoun gives to this name a Berber origin "El-Aghouat" means "mountain in the shape of theeth of a saw "

Laghouat is the place where the mounts of the Atlas and the Sahara combine their beauty and their strange charm.

• In the south, except the Oasis, as far as the eye can see, it's the desert, unknown and frightening vastness, and extraordinary and mysterious silence.
• In the North, the last buttresses of the Saharian Atlas with their freshness and their greenery. The city proudly carries the name of "Gate of the Desert" .

Laghouat is the intellectual capital of the Sahara.

The Oasis is the native land of many poets, one ofthem is Ben Keriou (the spontaneous poet, emulates of Lamartine).

There is in this city something magic :wistelling wind in the two layers of vegetation (palm trees and other fruit trees), the palm trees shades violently copied on the desiccated ground, monotonous chant of the prayer running from of sanctuary to another, while the radiant sun disappears behind the mountains splendid blue azure of Lazreg Djebel

the mosque and the palm plantation

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February 24, 2000 10:18 AM