Founded by Andalusi merchants in 903, Oran passed to Spain in 1509, the Ottomans in 1792 and France in 1831. Three days through Sidi El Houari's Almohad walls, Ottoman mosques, Spanish forts and the memory of 1962.
Built by Bey Mohamed El Kebir with ransom money from Spanish captives after the 1792 reconquest. The octagonal minaret in white and green tilework is Oran's finest Ottoman monument, standing in Sidi El Houari's oldest lane.
The Ottoman bey's late-18th-century residence, with courtyards, zellige tiling and the underground passage said to run to the port. Long under restoration, it opens partly for guided visits arranged through the Direction de la Culture.
The Ottoman hammam beside the 1793 medersa, both built from stone quarried out of the Murdjadjo. The Santé Sidi El Houari association runs restoration workshops here and shows visitors the vaulted bathing chambers and cisterns.
Spanish presidio walls of 1589 raised on the Almohad enceinte of the 12th century, when Oran was a Zayyanid trading port shipping grain to Valencia. The seaward curtain walls and casemates survive above the Ravin Ras El Aïn.
Algeria's second-oldest museum (1885), named for the first FLN fighter guillotined in 1956. Punic steles, Roman mosaics from Portus Magnus, Ottoman weaponry and a full War of Independence hall with maquis photographs and weapons.
The 1913 neo-Byzantine cathedral of French Oran, deconsecrated after 1962 and converted into the regional public library in 1984. The dome, rose windows and marble columns survive above the reading tables.
The 1930s French war memorial and the 1697 Spanish Fort Saint-André, later a French barracks and prison. The square was renamed for the 1845 battle of Sidi Brahim, a defeat that shaped colonial military memory.
From this pier some 800,000 pieds-noirs and their Jewish neighbours sailed for Marseille between June and September 1962, weeks after the 5 July massacre in the city. The old maritime station still faces the berths.
The pre-colonial heart around the tomb of Sidi El Houari, Oran's 14th-century patron saint. Spanish arcades, Ottoman doorways and 19th-century Genoese houses stack down the ravine towards the old Spanish landing stage.
Completed in 1918 for one of North Africa's largest Jewish communities, which numbered around 25,000 before 1962. Converted to a mosque in 1975, its Moorish revival façade on Boulevard Maata Mohamed El Habib is intact.
The 1907 Baroque opera house where Oran's colonial bourgeoisie sat, renamed for the playwright assassinated in 1994 during the black decade. The 1886 town hall opposite keeps its bronze lions and marble staircase.
The quarter the French built in 1845 for displaced Algerians, later called Village Nègre. Its cabarets and cafés carried bedouin meddahat singing into 1930s wahrani and postwar raï; the covered market keeps the old street grid.