What's on in Algiers, Algeria through the year

Peak crowds — Yennayer, Ramadan

• Holiday

  Yennayer

  11–13 JanNational holidayClosures

  The Amazigh new year, a public holiday since 2018. Offices close on the 12th and the day is kept at home with couscous rather than in the street, so the city is quiet and shuttered. Source ↗

• Holiday

  Ramadan

  25 Jan – 25 Mar · usuallyClosures

  Almost nothing serves food in daylight and the Casbah empties in the afternoon. The compensation is the hour before sunset, when the whole city is out buying bread and zlabia, and the nights that run past midnight. Source ↗

Busy — Ramadan, school holidays in 2 of the markets that fill it

Nothing new starts in February.

Still on: Ramadan (25 Jan – 25 Mar (usually))

Busy — Ramadan, school holidays in 4 of the markets that fill it

Nothing new starts in March.

Still on: Ramadan (25 Jan – 25 Mar (usually))

Busy — school holidays in 4 of the markets that fill it, one of its best months for weather

Nothing new starts in April.

Busy — school holidays in 3 of the markets that fill it, one of its best months for weather

Nothing new starts in May.

Busy — Beach season on the Algérois coast, school holidays in 3 of the markets that fill it

• Hazard

  Sirocco and Saharan dust

  15 Jun – 15 Sep · usuallyDust season

  A few times a summer the wind swings round off the desert and the city goes hot, hazy and gritty for two or three days at a stretch. Cars film over and anyone with a chest complaint stays indoors. Source ↗

• Season

  Beach season on the Algérois coast

  25 Jun – 5 Oct · usuallySea warm enoughCrowded

  The city moves west to Sidi Fredj and Zeralda and east to the Kabylie corniche, and the coast road is solid on Fridays. Algerian holidaymakers, not foreigners, are who you will be sharing the sand with. Source ↗

Peak crowds — Beach season on the Algérois coast, Independence Day

• Holiday

  Independence Day

  4–6 JulNational holidayClosuresCrowded

  The 5th of July closes everything official and puts flags along the seafront. It lands inside the domestic holiday season, so the coast west of the city is at its fullest around it. Source ↗

Still on: Sirocco and Saharan dust (15 Jun – 15 Sep (usually)), Beach season on the Algérois coast (25 Jun – 5 Oct (usually))

Busy — Beach season on the Algérois coast, school holidays in 4 of the markets that fill it

Nothing new starts in August.

Still on: Sirocco and Saharan dust (15 Jun – 15 Sep (usually)), Beach season on the Algérois coast (25 Jun – 5 Oct (usually))

Busy — Beach season on the Algérois coast, school holidays in 2 of the markets that fill it

Nothing new starts in September.

Still on: Sirocco and Saharan dust (15 Jun – 15 Sep (usually)), Beach season on the Algérois coast (25 Jun – 5 Oct (usually))

Peak crowds — Beach season on the Algérois coast, Algiers International Book Fair

• Festival

  Algiers International Book Fair

  25 Oct – 10 Nov · usuallyMajor festivalCrowded

  SILA fills the Pins Maritimes exhibition halls for ten days and is the closest thing Algiers has to a mass cultural event; hundreds of thousands come through and the road out to the site is jammed. Source ↗

Still on: Beach season on the Algérois coast (25 Jun – 5 Oct (usually))

Busy — Algiers International Book Fair, school holidays in 2 of the markets that fill it

Nothing new starts in November.

Still on: Algiers International Book Fair (25 Oct – 10 Nov (usually))

Quiet — school holidays in 5 of the markets that fill it, one of its worst months for weather

Nothing new starts in December.