Aïn El Turk

Ain el-Turck عين الترك
Town
Ain el-Turck
Aerial photo of the city Aerial photo of the city
Country	Algeria
Province	Wilaya d'Oran
District	Ain el Turck
Population  (2007)
• Total	31,977

Ain el-Turck (literally "the fountain of the Turks") is a the capital of Ain el-Turck District Located about fifteen kilometers from Oran, which is containing 9 municipalities , it now host an important seaside resort.

It also gives its name to one of the beaches in the region of Oran.

History

Centries ago, Ain el Turck was a plain called El Eurfa which extends from St Roch till Les Andalouses. Over the centuries, the population of El Eurfa plain (known later as Ain el Turck) has significantly increased. Two types of people lived there and cohabited : There were nomadic people who practice transhumance, wandering between the plains of El Eurfa, Boutlelis and Messreghinn, except in some special cases they did not go beyond the Sabkha in the south and the forest Madagh in the west, These nomadic tribes lived together and traded with sedentary or sedentarized tribes who practiced agriculture and beekeeping around Ain el Turck. These sedentary people sell their products at Mers el-Kebir and Oran, they also sold their products to nomadic tribes, but most of the time they swapped their products with sheeps as they supply them with meat and wool.

General Aspect of the city in 1831

Seaway and Roads

In 1831, the area where the village would be built was a kind of a cul-de-sac from the only major road, which was rather a road that connected les Andalouse and Mers-el-Kebir and Oran via Bousfer called "la Route des Crêtes" which was very rocky and took new directions at Ain Khadija (later, the road was named 'Ploteau road'), joining Ain el Turck at the small village Naqous, so named in Arabic because of the bells of the first church in the area "St. Anthony of Padua" (the word 'Naqous' means bell, in arabic).

However, there were many other ways relied the village to St Roch, Cape Falcon, Coralès , to Les-Andalouses, the Daya and Bousfer. Seaway has been used to link the city with Oran and Mers-el-Kebir, as there were links between these 2 cities when not at war, we know only that Turkish troops used the sea when coming to pick up the taxes

Ecology

Apart from some woods and groves located down the hills, vegetation was predominantly dwarf palms (Duma), Alfa tufts, some diss, lentisk (especially at the dunes), juniper , thorns, herbs, agave , Reeds and a multitude of flowers and plants which were used as forage.