Kabylia is the mountainous region of northern Algeria stretching from the Mediterranean coast inland across the Djurdjura range and the Soummam valley. It is the traditional homeland of the Kabyle, the largest Berber-speaking population in Tamazgha. Greater Kabylia, around the Djurdjura, and Lesser Kabylia, between the Soummam and the Babor mountains, are usually distinguished.
The Kabyle language, Taqbaylit, is spoken by some six million people in Algeria and a substantial diaspora in France, Belgium, and Canada. It is the most widely used and best-documented variety of Tamazight in the Maghreb.
The modern political history of the region is marked by recurrent confrontation with the Algerian state over the recognition of Berber identity. The Berber Spring of April 1980, triggered by the cancellation of a lecture by Mouloud Mammeri at the University of Tizi Ouzou, was the first mass mobilisation for Amazigh language rights in independent Algeria. The Black Spring of 2001, after the death of a high-school student in gendarme custody, produced months of protest and over a hundred deaths.
Tamazight was recognised as a national language in Algeria in 2002 and as an official language in 2016. Its status in education, administration, and public broadcasting remains contested in practice.
The capital of Greater Kabylia is Tizi Ouzou; that of Lesser Kabylia, Béjaïa. The regional economy combines olive cultivation, fig orchards, and remittances from the diaspora.