CHERCHEL, a seaport of Algeria, in the arrondissement and department of Algiers, 55 m. W. of the capital. Pop. 6,540. It is the centre of an agricultural and vine-growing district, but is com mercially of no great importance. The town is chiefly noteworthy for the extensive ruins of former cities on the same site.
Cherchel was a city of the Carthaginians, who named it Jol. Juba II. (25 B.c.) made it the capital of the Mauretanian king dom under the name of Caesarea. Destroyed by the Vandals, Caesarea regained some of its importance under the Byzantines. Taken by the Arabs it was renamed by them Cherchel. Khair-ed Din Barbarossa captured the city in 1520 and annexed it to his Algerian pashalik. In 1840 the town was occupied by the French. The ruins suffered greatly from vandalism during the early period of French rule, many portable objects being removed to museums in Paris or Algiers, and most of the monuments destroyed for the sake of their stone. The museum contains some of the finest statues discovered in Africa.