The Chaoui, in their own language Ishawiyen, are the Tamazight-speaking population of the Aurès massif and its eastern extensions in northeastern Algeria. Their variety, Tachawit, is closely related to Kabyle but sufficiently distinct to constitute a separate northern Tamazight branch, with around two million speakers.
The Chaoui are the second-largest Berber-speaking community in Algeria after the Kabyles, and historically the principal Berber population of the Constantine plain and its mountainous hinterland. Their territory has been continuously inhabited from the Numidian period, when Massinissa unified the eastern Maghreb under his kingdom, through Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, and Ottoman successions.
The legendary seventh-century resistance leader al-Kahina, defeated by the Umayyad commander Hassan ibn al-Nu'man around 703, is most consistently associated with the Aurès and is claimed in modern Chaoui identity as a foundational figure, although the medieval sources are heterogeneous on her exact tribal affiliation.
The Aurès was the first front of the Algerian War of Independence: the war was launched on 1 November 1954 with coordinated attacks across Wilaya I under Mostefa Ben Boulaïd. The contemporary Chaoui sphere is centred on Batna, Khenchela, and Oum El Bouaghi.