Medina of Sousse

The Medina of Sousse, on Tunisia's central Mediterranean coast, is an outstanding example of a fortified town from the first centuries of Islam. Sousse was an important commercial and military port during the Aghlabid period (800–909), and its walled old town still preserves the defensive system of that age: sturdy ramparts, a kasbah crowned by a signal tower, and above all the ribat — a fortress that doubled as a religious retreat, from whose watchtowers guards scanned the sea for raiders. The Great Mosque, austere and fortress-like, anchors the quarter alongside the Bu Ftata Mosque, among the oldest in the country. Narrow lanes and souks fill the space within the walls, part of a coastal chain of Islamic defences. Inscribed by UNESCO in 1988, the Medina of Sousse is prized as a rare and coherent survival of early Islamic military and religious architecture on the Mediterranean.