Algiers Province
Algiers exhibits apical dominance like an octopus head: 0.1% of land area controlling 20% of GDP across Algeria's economy.
Algiers Province embodies apical dominance—the biological principle where a single growing tip concentrates resources and suppresses competing nodes. This Mediterranean capital contains just 0.1% of Algeria's land area but generates 20% of national GDP ($51 billion in 2024). Like the head of an octopus coordinating distant tentacles, Algiers houses the stock exchange, central government, and 4.5 million people in a country of 45 million.
This concentration has deep roots. When the Barbarossa brothers brought Algiers under Ottoman control in 1529, they created the Mediterranean's most powerful piracy center. The corsair fleet exceeded 100 ships crewed by 10,000 men; an estimated 25% of the city's workforce lived from maritime predation. Over 30,000 Christian slaves were imprisoned here at the peak. Algiers operated as a parasitic economy, extracting wealth from passing trade until the French conquest in 1830 forcibly ended piracy and began 132 years of colonial rule.
The transition from predatory city-state to colonial capital to independent national capital shows how geographic advantages persist across political systems. Algiers sits at the midpoint of a 1,200km coastline, backed by the fertile Mitidja plain, with natural harbor protection. Whatever ruling system prevails, this location concentrates power. Today's economy depends on hydrocarbons (89% of exports), but the capital's dominance remains—a pattern of preferential attachment where size attracts more size.