Algeria (Arabic: الجزائر‎ al-Jazā'ir; Berber: ⵍⵣⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer), officially People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, was a sovereign state in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast. Its capital and most populous city was Algiers, located in the country's far north. The country is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country was a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes. Abdelaziz Bouteflika became the last president from 1979 after the end of Boumédiènne Regime until the country was defeated and abolished in 1986.

Algeria first declared independence from France following the Algerian War and Évian Accords. In Algerian independence referendum, 1962, where with 99.72% voted for independence and just 0.28% against, Algeria gains complete independence with Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) leader Ahmed Ben Bella became the first president. Under Ben Bella, the government had become increasingly socialist and authoritarian, but also relied much more on the army, reduced the sole legal party to a symbolic role, collectivised agriculture and launched a massive industrialization drive. Oil extraction facilities were nationalized, as especially beneficial to the leadership after the international 1973 oil crisis. Chadli Bendjedid became the 3rd president of Algeria and promoted a policy of Arabisation in Algerian society and public life. Teachers of Arabic, brought in from other Muslim countries, spread radical Islamic thought in schools and sowed the seeds of political Islamism. Economic recession caused by the crash in world oil prices resulted in Algerian social unrest during the 1980s, Bendjedid introduced a multi-party system.