Djerba: Testimony to a settlement pattern in an island territory

Scarce water shaped a whole way of living on Djerba. From around the 9th century CE, islanders spread themselves thinly across the land in self-sufficient clusters of dwellings, linked to one another and to shared mosques, markets and trading points by an intricate web of roads. This low-density pattern, a pragmatic answer to a semi-arid island environment, is what UNESCO honoured in 2023 when it inscribed Djerba on the World Heritage List.