Regency of Algiers

The Regency of Algiers was an autonomous eyalet of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa from 1516 to 1830. It was an early modern tributary state founded by the Corsair brothers Oruç and Hayreddin Barbarossa and ruled first by viceroys, then later became a sovereign military republic. The Regency was the earliest and the most powerful of the Barbary states and had the largest navy in North Africa. Situated between the Regency of Tunis in the east, the Sharifian Sultanate of Morocco and Spanish Oran (until 1791) in the west, the Regency originally extended its borders from the Mellegue river in the east to Moulouya river in the west and from Collo to Ouargla, and had nominal authority over the Tuat as well as the country south of In Salah in the south. Towards the end of the Regency, it extended to the present eastern and western borders of Algeria.