The olive coast — the towns of Sousse, Monastir and Mahdia, whose ribat fortresses guarded the Ifriqiyan shore, whose olive groves stretch to the horizon, and which supplied independent Tunisia with its first two presidents.
Population: Well over a million along the central Tunisian coast
Location: The Sahel plain from Sousse south through Monastir to Mahdia and Sfax's northern approaches
Language: Tunisian Arabic in its Sahel varieties
Language family: Afro-Asiatic → Semitic → Arabic
Traditional governance: Municipal administration with a long tradition of urban notability; the region's families have been disproportionately represented in Tunisian government since independence.
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Sousse and its hinterland
The regional capital, with a UNESCO-listed medina and ribat.
Monastir
Bourguiba's birthplace, with the oldest ribat on the coast.
Mahdia
The Fatimid capital on its peninsula, and the centre of the sardine fishery and silk weaving.
Clothing: The jebba and chechia for men; women's fouta and blouza in the older tradition; Mahdia's silk weaving supplies wedding cloth across the country.
Food: Olive oil in everything, since the region produces much of Tunisia's crop; grilled fish, ojja, couscous with fish rather than meat on the coast.
Ceremonies: Weddings with the Mahdia silk trousseau; the Sousse and Monastir summer festivals; Sufi observances at the coastal zawiyas; the olive harvest from November.
Marriage customs: Family-negotiated marriage with elaborate trousseau; Tunisia's Code of Personal Status, enacted in 1956, gave women rights unmatched in the region and reshaped practice everywhere.
Initiation rites: Circumcision with celebration; Quranic school historically, replaced by a schooling system the region invested in heavily and benefited from.
Every dish the Atlas publishes for Tunisia, at national rather than community level — 8 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.
Couscous stained red with tomato and harissa, steamed over a fish broth on the Sahel coast. Tunisia's version is the spicy one, and the fish version is what Sfax and Mahdia make on Fridays.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes
A whole egg wrapped in malsouka pastry with tuna, capers and parsley, deep fried so the yolk stays running. Eating one without spilling it is a small national test of skill.
Serves Makes 4 · 25 minutes
Chickpea soup poured over torn stale bread with cumin, harissa, olive oil and an egg, assembled to order in bowls in tiny shops. Cheap, hot, and the best hangover food in North Africa.
Serves 4 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking
also Fried vegetable chop
Peppers, courgette, potato, pumpkin and tomato fried separately then chopped together on a board with egg and harissa, sold from Tunisian corner shops in a bread roll.
Serves 4 · 45 minutes
Beef cooked for hours in powdered jute mallow until the sauce goes almost black. Eaten at the start of the year and at family celebrations, where a long slow blackening is taken as a good omen.
Serves 6 · 4 hours
also Makrout, Date semolina diamonds
Semolina pastry filled with spiced date paste, fried and dipped in honey, from Kairouan, which has made them for a thousand years.
Serves Makes about 30 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Eggs poached in a fierce tomato, pepper and harissa sauce with merguez sausage, cooked and served in the same pan. A fast, hot supper found in every Tunisian household.
Serves 4 · 35 minutes
A clear fig spirit distilled by Tunisia's Jewish community from the nineteenth century and drunk cold as an aperitif. One of very few traditional distilled spirits in North Africa.
Serves Serves as an aperitif · Commercially distilled; served in minutes
The RibatsArchitectural history
The ribat was a fortified monastery where volunteers combined religious devotion with coastal defence against Byzantine raids. Monastir's, begun in 796, is the oldest on the coast; Sousse's stands in a UNESCO-listed medina. The buildings are austere, square and functional, and they gave the region its name — Monastir, from the Latin monasterium.
Two Presidents from One CoastPolitical account
Habib Bourguiba was born in Monastir and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Hammam Sousse, ten kilometres apart. For fifty-four years Tunisia was governed by men from this stretch of shore, and the region received investment and appointments accordingly. The imbalance between the coast and the interior was a direct cause of the 2010 uprising, which began in Sidi Bouzid.
“The olive rewards the grandchild.”
A tree that takes decades to give fully.
“The sea in front, the grove behind.”
The Sahel's two economies.
“The coast eats and the interior watches.”
Said bitterly of Tunisia's regional divide.
Creation: Islamic cosmology; the region's Sufi zawiyas and saint tombs give the coastal landscape a dense religious geography.
Beliefs: Sunni Maliki Islam; Sufi orders with coastal zawiyas; saint veneration and moussem visitation; belief in the evil eye and protective hand motifs.
Ancestors: Family tombs and zawiya burials; urban notable families keep genealogies that matter socially and commercially.
Allah
The one God
Coastal saints
Sufi figures whose tombs and zawiyas mark the shore
Baraka
Blessing sought at the ribats and the saints' tombs
Traditional settlements: Walled medinas with ribat and great mosque at the centre; Mahdia's fortified peninsula; olive groves in regular grids across the plain behind.
Building techniques: Stone and lime construction with vaulted roofing; the ribat's square defensive plan with a watchtower; underground olive presses and vaulted storage.
Village layout: Medina of narrow shaded lanes around mosque and market, ribat commanding the harbour, groves radiating inland.
Ribat of Monastir
Heritage site
The oldest ribat on the coast, begun in 796.
Medina of Sousse
Heritage site
UNESCO World Heritage site with ribat, kasbah and great mosque.
Mahdia silk weaving
Textile
Handwoven silk for wedding trousseaux, a protected craft.
Olive oil presses
Industry
Traditional and modern presses of one of the Mediterranean's great olive regions.
796
The ribat of Monastir is founded; coastal fortification against Byzantine raids begins.
921
Mahdia becomes the Fatimid capital, built on its defensible peninsula.
1881–1956
French protectorate; the coast develops schooling and administration ahead of the interior.
1956–2011
Bourguiba and then Ben Ali, both from the Sahel, govern Tunisia for fifty-four years.
2010–2011
The uprising begins in the neglected interior at Sidi Bouzid, in explicit contrast to the coast.
Open sources
Premium & scholarly sources