Sfax: Medina, City Walls and Cultural History

The Medina, its enclosing walls and cultural sites give Sfax a distinctive character for a trip focused on architecture and history. They bring together different scales: an urban area enclosed by city walls, a traditional 17th-century house, a centrally located mosque and archaeological collections. This gives Sfax several themes to consider when planning your trip. You can choose how much emphasis to place on urban layout, architectural history and museum collections.

The Medina and its city walls

The Medina of Sfax covers 24 hectares and is enclosed by city walls measuring 2,750 metres in length. The enclosed area and the length of the walls convey two different scales of this historic urban space. Its overall shape is also distinctive: the walls enclose a slightly irregular quadrilateral measuring 600 metres from east to west and 400 to 450 metres from north to south. Its sides therefore do not form a regular rectangle. This specific shape is connected to a long history: in 859 AD, the city walls were built by the qadi Ali Ibn Aslam el-Bekri under the rule of Ahmed Ibn el-Aghlab. The construction date and layout give the Medina a tangible historical dimension and a concrete starting point if you are interested in the history of the walls.

A house and mosque within the Medina

At the heart of the Medina lies Dar Jallouli, a traditional house built in the 17th century. Its location places a single building within the context of the Medina, while its construction date provides a clear historical timeframe. Together with the city walls built in 859, the house offers a comparison between two widely separated building periods: the 9th-century enclosure and a traditional house from the 17th century. For travellers interested in architecture, this means Sfax’s long history is not reduced to a single era.

The Great Mosque of Sfax is also located in the centre of the Medina. It stands at the intersection of the road between Bab-el-Gibli and Bab-el-Diwan and the central east-west axis. This makes the relationship between the building and the urban layout a subject in its own right: the mosque is situated at a central junction in the street plan. Alongside Dar Jallouli, it offers a different perspective on the Medina—through a traditional house and its period of construction, and through the position of a mosque within the inner urban fabric. This lets you consider architecture and spatial organisation as related but distinct aspects.

Archaeological collections from the region

Another side of Sfax is revealed at the Archaeological Museum. It displays extensive collections of mosaics, glass, ceramics and coins from the Roman period; the objects come from archaeological sites in the region. The different materials and categories of finds offer a range of points of interest: they all belong to the Roman collections, but can be explored through very different interests. The museum complements the study of the Medina and its buildings with objects collected from across the region.

Choose accommodation based on your travel interests

You can choose a holiday rental in Sfax by starting with your own travel priorities. If you would also like to visit the Archaeological Museum and see its collections, take this into account when choosing where to stay. This lets you compare accommodation according to your interests, rather than letting a general description of its location be the only deciding factor. For families, it can also be helpful to discuss in advance whether architecture, urban layout or archaeological objects are of particular interest to everyone. This helps you plan together without requiring every subject to take up the same amount of time during your stay.

Discover more destinations: Ouled Kacem, Hanshir al Raqubah, Sidi Mansour.

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