Gabès (rear RTL قابس) is a city Tunisia of 116.323 inhabitants (Recensement of 2004) and the Chef-lieu of the governorship of the same name. The Agglomeration of Gabès (cash the municipalities of Gabès, Chenini Nahal, Ghannouch, Métouia and Oudhref) account a population of 170.000 inhabitants.

Geography

Located at the bottom of the Golfe of Gabès, to which it also gives its name and which constitutes an important ornithological reserve , it is located at 406 kilometers of Tunis. Gabès has the characteristic to be at the same time a Oasis and a seaport. The Pollution remains however the black spot of Gabès.

History

Gabès is founded by the Phéniciens which gather an agglomeration of villages in commercial counter. The city remains Carthaginian until second century BC and the Second Punic War then becomes a Roman colony. The oasis then becomes a flourishing shopping mall attached to the Tripolitaine of which famous Pline with emphase the fruitfulness of the ground. The city is still very prosperous under the Byzantine domination before becoming a stronghold of the king numide Massinissa.

Being with the junction of important transportation routes, it takes importance with the arrived of the Moslems at the 7th century. The Arab historian El Bekri speaks at the 7th century about Gabès like big city girded by a wall about large stones and about strewn with ancient constructions. According to him, the city has strong a Citadelle, several Faubourg S (located at the east and the south of the downtown area), Bazar S and Caravansérail S, a “splendid” Mosquée and a great number of baths. The whole is surrounded by a broad easily flooded ditch in the event of external threats. The geographer Al Idrissi (12th century) and Leon the African (16th century) confirm this description.

With the arrival of the French Army in 1881, Gabès becomes most important military Garnison of Tunisia. Passed under German control in 1940, the city is almost destroyed in the combat of the Campagne of Tunisia (1943). Rebuilt starting from 1945, it is again devastated by Crue S in 1962.

Economy

The city shelters a diversified economic activity. Constituting the fourth port commercial of the country (in terms of traffic and Turnover), it shelters important a industrial sector, which is in particular specialized in the Chemical industry with the presence of an important treatment plant of the Phosphate located in a industrialo-harbor zone shared with the town of Ghannouch, but which shelters also an offshore oil rig infrastructure of oil exploitation and petrochemical.

Port of fishing specialized in fishing with the Tuna, Gabès also shelters its clean Conserve laughs. In addition, its palm plantation of 300.000 date palms extends in a unit from ten oasis (Oudref, Métouia, Ghannouch, Bou Chemma, Chenini, Teboulbou and Kettana) directed on a North-South axis along the littoral ranging between the Akarit wadi (in north) and the wadi El Ferd (in the south).

The Tourisme is under development in this city which is also only the oasis coastal in the world. Even if the lack of investment as well as the establishment of chemical industry in the area drew aside opportunity of creating a true tourism industry on the littoral, a policy was installation in order to move industries towards the Skhira, to clean the gulf of Gabes following the recommendations of the international associations such as Greenpeace, to arrange a international Aéroport as well as small Hôtel S for the tourists in transit between the north and the south of Tunisia.

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