Tamanrasset

Tamanrasset, town, southern Algeria. Located in the mountainous Ahaggar (Hoggar) region on the Wadi Tamanghasset, the town originated as a military outpost, guarding trans-Saharan trade routes. It has become an important way station on the north-south asphalt road called the Trans-Sahara Highway via northern Algeria, which reached Tamanrasset in 1980. Although the desert climate is mitigated by the town’s elevation of 4,521 feet (1,378 metres), some of the world’s highest known shade temperatures (exceeding 100 °F [38 °C]) have been recorded there at the Jules Carde Observatory.

The town is a Tuareg Berber oasis settlement where citrus fruits, peaches, apricots, dates, almonds, figs, cereals, and corn (maize) are grown. Its red houses and magnificent rugged scenery make Tamanrasset a tourist attraction during the cooler months.

The surrounding region, located entirely within the Sahara, is a vast, extremely dry area. Its physiography includes the large sand dunes of the Grand Ergs Occidental and Oriental in the west and northeast and the Tademait Plateau (a sandstone and limestone escarpment [hammada]) in the north. The Ahaggar is an arid mountainous plateau (more than 3,000 feet [900 metres] above sea level) extending about 965 miles (1,550 km) north-south and 1,300 miles (2,092 km) east-west and culminating in Tahat, a peak 9,573 feet (2,918 metres) in elevation. Eroded sandstone plateaus (tassilis) extend from the Ahaggar. The sparse population of this region is partly settled and partly nomadic. The nomads principally inhabit the valleys of Atakor (the highest areas of the Ahaggar) and graze camels and goats where the scant rainfall is enough to support a steppelike growth of grasses.

In 1905 Charles Eugène de Foucauld, the French explorer and ascetic, built his hermitage in the town of Tamanrasset, where he compiled a Tuareg language grammar and dictionary. A memorial column was erected near the spot where he was assassinated in 1916. The Museum of the Hoggar specializes in Tuareg exhibits. Pop. (1998) 54,469; (2008) 81,752.