on board. Modern Skikda The city has a population of 250,000. Natural gas, oil refining, and petrochemical industries were developed in the 1970s and pipelines have been built for their transportation. The city hall (a neo-moorish style palace) and the railroad station were designed by Le Corbusier. The official city flag colours are blue and white, the colours of the Mediterranean. The current postal code is 21000. Skikda has the third largest commercial port in Algeria after Algiers and Oran. It has also a petrochemical terminal port and a smaller fishing port in Stora, and there are many beaches along the natural Mediterranean coastline. There is also a closed airport near the petrochemical complex. Geography Skikda lies on the coast of the Gulf of Stora, part of the Mediterranean Sea. The landscape is hilly and forested, with high ridges on both the western and eastern sides of the city. Climate Skikda has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa), with cool, wet winters and very warm, dry summers. Economy Historically, Skikda is known for its seaport. It was described, in 1911, by Baedeker as having "the youngest Algerian seaport." On 19 January 2004, a fire and explosion at the Skikda LNG facility killed 29 people and caused $940,000,000 worth of damage. The accident incapacitated three LNG trains and impacted approximately 2% of the world's liquefaction capacity. The explosion was preceded by the ingestion of a sizable leak of cold hydrocarbon into the boiler of the westernmost LNG line. This caused the boiler to explode. According to the 2014 Marsh report into the world's largest industrial disaster, the Skikda explosion is ranked No. 3 in the hydrocarbon industry. Transportation The main road from Skikda is the N3 to El Arrouch, Constantine, Batna, Biskra and Touggourt. Smaller local roads lead to the towns of Stora (to the northwest along the coast), Beni Bechir (to the south), Bissy and Azzaba (to the southeast), and El Mersa and Chetaibi (to the east). Skikda is the terminus of the Algiers-Skikda line – one of the SNTF mainline railroads, although most passenger and cargo services branch off in nearby Ramdane Djamel (towards the Ramdane Djamel-Annaba or Ramdane Djamel-Jijel lines before reaching Skikda). The city is served by Skikda Airport, although this airport is currently unused. Notable people Fadéla M'rabet, writer and feminist References Citations Bibliography . External links Skikda District's Official Website Communes of Skikda Province