Djerba

Djerba's flat, well-watered ground and sheltered position made it a stopping place for Mediterranean traders long before the Romans. Ancient writers identified it with the land of the lotus-eaters in Homer's Odyssey, and under Rome the island held the town of Meninx on the south-east coast near El Kantara, a centre for the purple dye made from murex shells. A causeway of Roman origin still links the island's eastern side to the mainland. Houmt Souk grew on the site of a Roman town whose name survives as Girba; two third-century emperors, Trebonianus Gallus and his son Volusianus, were born there.

After the Arab conquest the island became a refuge for Ibadi Muslims, a minority tradition whose plain, fortified white mosques still dot the countryside, and it developed a distinct society of scattered walled farmsteads rather than villages. A Jewish community, whose own traditions trace its arrival to antiquity, settled in the two haras, Hara Kebira and Hara Seghira. In the 16th century Djerba became a prize in the struggle between Spain and the Ottomans: the Ottoman victory of 1560, when a Spanish-led fleet was destroyed, was commemorated by a tower of skulls near Houmt Souk that stood until the 19th century.

Under the Ottomans and then the French protectorate the island lived on fishing, sponges, olive oil, weaving and pottery, and on the earnings of Djerbian merchants who ran grocery shops across Tunisia and beyond. Beach tourism arrived in the 1960s and reshaped the east coast; the Jewish community, once several thousand strong, shrank through emigration but has not disappeared. In 2023 the island was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its distinctive pattern of settlement.

Djerba is a place of minorities that kept their own customs. Most islanders are Ibadi Muslims, followers of a branch of Islam distinct from the Sunni majority of the mainland, and their mosques — squat, whitewashed and buttressed, some built to double as refuges — are the island's architectural signature, along with the menzel, a walled farmstead set among its own olives and palms. Amazigh speech survives in the southern villages, and Djerbian identity is strongly felt, including among the many islanders who work elsewhere and return for holidays.

The Jewish community of Hara Kebira, beside Houmt Souk, and Hara Seghira, now Erriadh, is among the last of any size in the Arab world. Its focus is the Ghriba synagogue, where a spring pilgrimage around Lag BaOmer has long drawn worshippers from Tunisia, France and Israel. Jewish jewellers and silversmiths were central to the island's crafts for generations, and Djerbian Jewish liturgical music and cooking remain distinct.

Crafts remain a living part of local culture rather than only a tourist trade: pottery at Guellala, weaving of blankets and wool cloth, basketry from palm fronds and boat building at Ajim. Since 2014 the Djerbahood murals have added a contemporary layer to Erriadh, and the island has become a regular venue for conferences and festivals, a reminder that its economy now turns on visitors as much as on the sea.

About 165,000 people live on the island, most of them in and around the three communes of Houmt Souk, Midoun and Ajim. Houmt Souk, with roughly 75,000 residents, is the administrative and commercial centre; Midoun's territory holds the hotel strip; Ajim remains a fishing port. Settlement is dispersed across the countryside in the old pattern of separate farmsteads, so the island can feel thinly populated even where many people live.

Tourism dominates the economy, directly through hotels and restaurants and indirectly through crafts, transport and construction, and downturns after attacks elsewhere in Tunisia have been felt sharply. Fishing, sponge diving, olive growing, pottery and weaving continue alongside it, and remittances from Djerbians working in Tunis, France and the Gulf matter to many households. Fresh water is piped from the mainland, and shortages, coastal erosion and the pressure of building along the shore are recurring local concerns.

The day begins early, with the fish auction and the markets, slows through the hot afternoon and resumes in the evening, when the squares of Houmt Souk fill with people over tea and coffee. Friday prayers, the weekly village markets and family visits set the rhythm of the week, and in summer the island's own residents crowd the beaches after sunset.

Djerba's kitchen is Tunisian but with its own dishes. Rouz jerbi is the island speciality: rice layered with chopped greens, herbs, vegetables and meat or liver, then steamed in the vessel used for couscous so that it cooks in the scented steam. Couscous itself appears with fish or lamb, and the sea supplies mullet, sea bream, squid and octopus, often dried in the sun before being stewed with tomato and harissa. Fresh sardines and small fish are grilled over charcoal near the harbour at Houmt Souk.

The national staples are everywhere: harissa, the chilli and garlic paste, on almost every table; brik, a crisp pastry parcel of egg and tuna eaten in a single careful bite; lablabi, a chickpea soup poured over torn bread; and mechouia, a salad of charred peppers and tomatoes. Olive oil from the island's own groves is used generously, and dates from the southern oases are sold in the markets in autumn.

Sweets lean on almonds, sesame and honey, and bambalouni, a ring doughnut fried to order and dusted with sugar, is sold at stalls in the evening. Mint tea, often poured over roasted almonds or pine nuts, and small strong coffees are drunk in the cafés through the day; legmi, the sap drawn from date palms, is a southern drink, sweet when fresh and alcoholic once it ferments. Boukha, a spirit distilled from figs and long associated with Tunisia's Jewish communities, is the island's other traditional drink.