Tunis

Tunis is the capital of Tunisia, on the Lake of Tunis at the inner end of the Gulf of Tunis. Its medina, the walled old town of souks, mosques and palaces, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Tunis began as a Berber town near Carthage, whose ruins lie on the coast to the northeast. The Arabs made it their main town in the region after taking Carthage at the end of the 7th century, and the Zitouna Mosque was founded at its heart in the following century. The Hafsid dynasty made Tunis its capital in the 13th century, and the Ottomans ruled it from the 16th century through governors who later became the hereditary beys. France made Tunisia a protectorate in 1881 and laid out a new town of straight avenues east of the medina. Tunis became the capital of independent Tunisia in 1956.

The Société de Fabrication des Boissons de Tunisie brews Celtia, the national beer, and Poulina Group makes poultry, dairy, steel and building materials from its base in the capital. The port of Tunis at La Goulette and Radès receives ferries from Marseille and Genoa and handles containers.

The Zitouna Mosque, with its prayer hall of ancient columns taken from Carthage, was also a center of Islamic learning. The Bardo National Museum, in a former palace of the beys, holds Roman mosaics from sites across the country, among them a portrait of Virgil. The ruins of Carthage include the Antonine Baths on the sea and the old Punic ports. Sidi Bou Said, a village of white houses with blue doors on a cliff above the gulf, lies within the suburbs of the city.