Warning. Due to the events in Mali, the Tassili and the Hoggar located in the region of Tamanrasset have been banned to foreign tourists in 2010. Only Tamanrasset and the Assekrem are currently open to foreign tourists, but not its desert and the Tassili of Hoggar. The region is however accessible to Algerian tourists.Built at an altitude of 1,400 m, on either side of the Tamanrasset (or Tamenghest)wadi and the Sersouf wadi, a tributary, Tamanrasset is a recent city, dominated to the east by the threatening Hoggar. When, in 1905, Father de Foucauld arrived here on the advice of his friend Laperrine, Tam was barely a hamlet of zeribas that only grew a few decades later under the influence of a military man forgotten by history but not by the oldest inhabitants of Tamanrasset, Captain Florimond. The French administration only settled here in the 1920s after the abandonment of Fort Motylinski (now Tarhaouhaout). In 1951, Tam became a sub-prefecture of the department of the Territory of the Oases in the Sahara, and the town began to develop thanks to the French nuclear research and tests carried out in In-Ekker.In 1974, the city became the headquarters of the wilaya. The improvement of the access roads and the drought that hit the Sahara terribly in the 1970s brought many new inhabitants. In the 1980s and 1990s, the city experienced a kind of economic boom, due in particular to the arrival of more and more tourists. At the end of the 1980s, tourist agencies were created every day, guides and drivers became self-employed, encouraged by the authorities, and urban development projects attracted new workers. But everything stops abruptly in 1992 with the terrorism which, let us recall it, did not touch the South. Tourists stopped coming, except for a few Germans and Italians, and most of the agencies, if they didn't collapse, slowed down or looked for other activities. Since 1998, business has picked up but still depends on the opinions of foreign chancelleries, real or perceived threats from labelled groups or simply rumours of insecurity. All those concerned with tourism have decided to organize themselves to bring back tourists, but the sector remains fragile and, with the war in Mali and the impossibility for foreign tourists to travel to Tam, the next tourist seasons are likely to be compromised because few Algerian tourists - the only ones allowed to travel to Tam - come here. But if the security situation in the region improves, it is conceivable that the Algerian authorities will reopen Tam to foreigners and that a rapid recovery could take place. In the meantime, the travel agencies on site are struggling.Today, Tamanrasset is a commercial city, a market town and a meeting point marking the beginning of the tracks to Gao (Mali) or Agadès (Niger) where Sahelian Africa meets and often stagnates here while waiting for the door to the North to open. Hundreds of Cameroonians and Malians, future or former refugees, who are not very visible, survive in the rocks near the city, and nothing seems to discourage them.It is admitted that the city, which is constantly expanding, has no less than 150,000 inhabitants. On the outskirts, new neighborhoods take shape every year and, on the road to the airport, a university now keeps young students on site.

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Pic Ilarene, près de Tamanrasset Ismaël Schwartz - Iconotec
Mont Tahat, le plus haut d'Algérie (2 918 m) Jean-Paul LABOURDETTE
Camping de Tamanrasset. Jean-Paul LABOURDETTE
Chamelier touareg Ismaël Schwartz - Iconotec

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