Ghardaia is the capital of the Mzab Valley, located north of the Algerian Sahara, about 600 km south of Algiers, 200 km south of Laghouat and 200 km west of Ouargla.
The Saharan town of Ghardaia, just over an hour by plane from the capital Algiers, is one of the pentapolis towns of the UNESCO World Heritage M'Zab Valley.
The commune of Ghardaïa has a population of 93,423 according to the 2008 census, up from 87,599 in 1998, with an annual growth rate of 0.7% It is located in northern-central Algeria in the Sahara Desert and lies along the left bank of the Wadi Mzab. The M'zab valley in the Ghardaïa Province (Wilaya) was inscribed under the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1982, as a cultural property evaluated under the criteria II (for its settlement affecting urban planning even to the present century), III (for its Ibadi cultural values), and V (a settlement culture which has prevailed to the present century).
2022
