Tunisia | History, Map, Flag, Population, & Facts | Britannica

1. Per constitution of 2022.
2. Out of 161 seats, of which 10 are reserved for Tunisians abroad; 7 seats reserved for Tunisians abroad are vacant.
3. Seventy-two seats are allocated for the National Assembly of Regions and Districts, which has not yet been inaugurated.

Tunisia’s culture is highly diverse, in part because of long periods of Ottoman and then French rule but also because populations of Jews and Christians have lived among a Muslim majority for centuries. Similarly, the capital, Tunis, blends ancient Arab souks and mosques and modern-style office buildings into one of the most handsome and lively cities in the region. Other cities include Sfax (Ṣafāqis), Sousse (Sūsah), and Gabès (Qābis) on the fertile coast and Kairouan (Al-Qayrawān) and El-Kef (Al-Kāf) in the arid interior.

Tunisia’s people are renowned for their conviviality and easygoing approach to daily life, qualities that Albert Memmi captured in his 1955 autobiographical novel Pillar of Salt:

We shared the ground floor of a shapeless old building, a sort of two-room apartment. The kitchen, half of it roofed over and the rest an open courtyard, was a long vertical passage toward the light. But before reaching this square of pure blue sky, it received, from a multitude of windows, all the smoke, the smells, and the gossip of our neighbours. At night, each locked himself in his room, but in the morning, life was always communal.

This warmth, joined with the country’s renowned hospitality and cuisine, has contributed greatly to Tunisia’s growing popularity as a destination for tourists from throughout Europe and the Americas.