Oran (people 700,000) (Arabic: ولاية وهران ) is a city around north-west Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. In the period of French rule in Algeria Oran was the prefecture of the Oran département.

Administration

Oran is the capital of the province (wilaya) of the same title.

History

Oran was founded in the 10th century by Moorish Andalusian traders, but was captured per Spanish under Cardinal Cisneros in 1509. From either 1708 to 1732 and from 1791 to 1831, the city was section of the Ottoman Empire, until it fell to the French in 1831.

In a period of the French colonial rule over Algerithe, Oran was the capital of a département of the same title (total 92).

When you took World War II, Oran was held by Vichy France until it was captured by the Allies in late 1942, during Operation Torch.

Around July 1940, the British Royal Navy shelled French warships in the port after it refused to respond to the British ultimatum designed to assure it would non fall into German mitts. A action sealed a hate of Vichy France for Britain but convinced the world, especially the United States, of the British will to fight in alone against Nazi Germany and its allies.

Fallowing a prevent of the Algerian War of Independence and the resultant exodus of Europeans and Jews to France, Oran lost all about half its people.

Oran today

In todays world, Oran occurs as major port & the commercial message centre, & has the university. the old quarter of Oran has a casbah and an 18th-century mosque.

Culture

A folk music Raï had its beginnings in Oran.

Fiction

Albert Camus' 1947 novel The Plague takes place in the invented Oran.

ar:ولاية وهران ca:Orà de:Oran fr:Oran he:×?ור×?ן nl:Oran ro:Oran