Tissemsilt Province
The Ouarsenis mountains: "nothing higher" in Berber. Zenete Berbers, Atlas cedar forests, and 419mm annual rain on erosion-prone slopes.
Tissemsilt occupies the Ouarsenis—a Berber name meaning "nothing higher." Mount Sidi Amar reaches 1,985 meters, and the range's inhabitants, Zenete Berbers descended from the Banou Ifren and Maghraouas, have lived here for centuries. The Berber language once spoken throughout the massif now survives only among the Matmatas in the north, though it persists in place names and family surnames.
The province was carved from Alger and Tiaret in 1984, a late addition to Algeria's administrative map. Its 294,476 inhabitants (2008 census) practice mixed agriculture on difficult terrain: 76.9% of the surface sits between 650 and 1,100 meters, with poorly developed soils prone to erosion. Rainfall averages 419mm annually. Cattle farming runs extensive (48%) because the geography allows nothing else.
What the mountains lack in agricultural potential they preserve in biodiversity. Théniet El Haâd National Park protects Atlas cedar forests that are relicts—survivors of climatic changes that eliminated cedars from lower elevations. Tissemsilt is a refugium in both ecological and cultural senses: species and language varieties that disappeared elsewhere persist in these heights where "nothing is higher."