Algeria was discovered by French astronomer Guy Reiss at the North African Algiers Observatory on 5 December 1931.
[13] Three nights later, the body was independently discovered by Belgian–American astronomer George Van Biesbroeck at the U.S. Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin.
[13] The dark asteroid orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.7–3.5 AU once every 5 years and 7 months (2,035 days).
[1] A rotational lightcurve of Algeria was obtained from photometric observations made by French amateur astronomer Claudine Rinner in August 2002.
[3] This minor planet was named in honour of the North African country Algeria, location of the discovering observatory and a French colony at the time.