Ech-Cheliff

Town in northern Algeria and administrative capital of the department of Cheliff; population (1998 est) 182,300. The town lies on the Chelif River, south of the port of Ténès on the Mediterranean Sea, and is a major railway junction midway between Algiers and Oran. The town is the market centre of the province, where cereals, fruit, and cotton are grown, and beef and dairy cattle are reared. Industries include printing, leather working, and fruit-juice processing.

The town was founded by the French in 1843 on an earlier Roman settlement, Castellum Tingitanum.

Its name was changed from Al Asnam in 1981, as it had experienced severe earthquakes in 1954 and 1980, the latter destroying half the buildings and killing some 5,000 people.