Guelma

Guelma occupies an inland valley in northeastern Algeria. In Roman times it was known as Calama, a town of Numidia whose remains include a theater. The Christian bishop Possidius held the see in the fifth century, before the Vandal conquest. Byzantine fortifications later enclosed the settlement. The name Guelma belongs to its subsequent history in the Islamic Maghreb, where it lay between the coast and the inland plateaus.