Aures Mountains

The Aurès rises between the high plains of the Maghreb and the northern edge of the Sahara. Steep, parallel ridges enclose deep valleys where streams water cultivated ground, while the highest summits bear forests of cedar. The mountains have long been home to the Chaoui, an Amazigh people whose villages and gardens occupy the valleys. In the seventh century the massif was a stronghold of resistance to the Arab conquest, remembered in the story of the leader known as al-Kahina.