Governorates of Tunisia

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Updates: 

The Tunisian Industry Portal  site (French version) shows the creation dates of the governorates. It agrees pretty well with the information I already had listed, but differed where I had given approximate dates, so I've used all the dates given on that site. I used to have a date of 1956-06-31, which had to be wrong. There's no 06-31.

FIPS Publication Change Notice No. 9, affecting FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2004-10-01. It assigns a code to the new Manouba governorate. It also changes the name of El Kef governorate to Kef (shown as Le Kef in the tables below).

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-6 was published on 2004-03-08. It gives "La Manouba" as the correct name for the new governorate of Manouba. I have not yet found confirmation for this change.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-5, dated 2003-09-05, shows the new Manouba governorate (reported on this page almost three years earlier). The new ISO code for Manouba is shown below.

Country overview: 

Tunisia (more commonly called Tunis, formally the Regency of Tunis, until about 1930) began the 20th century as a French protectorate. It gained full independence on 1956-03-20. Tunisia's desert boundaries were indistinct at first, and there is still a border dispute with Algeria.

Other names of country: 

1. Arabic: al Jumhuriya at-Tunisiya (formal)
2. Danish: Tunesien
3. Dutch: Tunesië, Republiek Tunesië (formal)
4. English: Republic of Tunisia (formal), Tunis (obsolete)
5. Finnish: Tunisia
6. French: Tunisie f
7. German: Tunesien n
8. Icelandic: Túnis
9. Italian: Tunisia f
10. Norwegian: Tunisia, Republikken Tunisia (formal)
11. Portuguese: Tunísia, República f da Tunísia f (formal)
12. Spanish: Túnez, Tunisia f, República f de Túnez m (formal)
13. Swedish: Tunisien

Origin of name: 

from the capital, Tunis + -ia (suffix for country)

Primary subdivisions: 

Tunisia is divided into 24 wilayat (governorates).

Postal codes: 

Tunisia uses four-digit postal codes in which the first two digits indicate the governorate.

Further subdivisions:

See the Delegations of Tunisia page.

The provinces are divided into mutamadiyat (delegations, districts). The census reports show a tertiary division, the imada (sector).

Territorial extent: 

1. Bizerte includes the islands of La Galite.
2. Médenine includes the island of Djerba.
3. Nabeul includes the island of Zembra.
4. Sfax includes the Kerkennah Islands. The two main islands are Chergui and Gharbi, and nearby are the small and uninhabited Rhermedi, Roumedia, and Sefnou.

Origins of names: 

1. Bizerte: originally Hippo Diarrhytos (Phoenician hippo: fort, Greek diarrhytos: split in two), rendered in Arabic as Hippo Zarytos, later Banzart.
2. Le Kef: Arabic kef: rock
3. Mahdia: named after Caliph Obaid Allah el Mahdi (early 10th cent.)
4. Monastir: from Greek monasterion: monastery
5. Nabeul: from Greek nea: new, polis: city
6. Tunis: possibly from Tanit, Phoenician moon goddess

Change history: 

1. Tunisia (more commonly called Tunis, formally the Regency of Tunis, until about 1930) began the 20th century as a French protectorate. It gained full independence on 1956-03-20. At the end of the protectorate period, Tunisia consisted of 38 caidates (French: caïdats. A caidat is the jurisdiction of a caïd, or magistrate). They were:

1. 1956-06-21: Tunisia reorganized from caidats into wilayats (governorates). The Statesman's Year Book, 1959 edition, says there were fourteen of them, but all the lists I've found from this period show only thirteen.

1. Kasserine appears to have been called Sbeitla at some time.
2. ~1967: Name of Souk el Arba governorate, and its capital, changed to Jendouba; name of Cap Bon changed to Nabeul, perhaps because the capital had moved from Grombalia to Nabeul.
3. 1973-05-24: Tunis South governorate created from parts of Béja, Bizerte, Nabeul, and Tunis and Suburbs. Part of Nabeul governorate transferred to Sousse.
4. 1973-12-04: Sidi Bou Zid governorate created from parts of Gafsa, Kasserine, and Sfax.
5. 1974-03-09: Mahdia governorate created from parts of Sfax and Sousse; Monastir governorate split from Sousse.
6. 1974-06-05: Siliana governorate created from parts of Béja and Le Kef.
7. 1976-11: Tunis North and Tunis South reorganized into Zaghouan (mostly from Tunis South) and Tunis.
8. 1981-01-20: Tataouine governorate split from Médenine.
9. 1981-09: Kebili governorate split from Gabès.
10. 1983-12: Tozeur governorate split from Gafsa.
11. 1983-03: Ariana governorate split from Tunis.
12. 1983-12-03: Ben Arous governorate split from Tunis.
13. 2000-07-01: Manouba governorate split from Ariana (former HASC code TN.AN, FIPS code TS26).

Other names of subdivisions: 

There are numerous methods for transliterating from Arabic to the Roman alphabet. The names here labeled Arabic are not the only possible versions.

1. Ariana: Al Ariānah, L'Ariana, Tunis Ariana (variant); Al Aryānah (Arabic)
2. Béja: Bājah (Arabic); Béjah (variant)
3. Ben Arous: Bin `Arūs (Arabic); Tunis Ben Arous (variant)
4. Bizerte: Banzart (Arabic); Bensert, Binzart (variant); Biserta (German, Italian); Bizerta (Portuguese, Spanish)
5. Gabès: Gābis (variant); Qābis (Arabic)
6. Gafsa: Gafṣah (variant); Qafṣah (Arabic)
7. Jendouba: Jendoûbah, Jenduba, Jondouba (variant); Jundūbah (Arabic); Souk-El-Arba (obsolete)
8. Kairouan: Al Qayrawān (Arabic); Al Qīrwān, Qairouân (variant); Kairuã (Portuguese)
9. Kassérine: Al Gaṣrīn, Al Qasrin, Kasserim (variant); Al Qaṣrayn (Arabic); Sbeitla (obsolete)
10. Kebili: Kebilli, Qbili (variant); Qibilī (Arabic)
11. Le Kef: Al Kāf (Arabic); El Kef, Kaf, Kef (variant)
12. Mahdia: Al Madīyah, Al Mahdiyya, Mahdiâh (variant); Al Mahdīyah (Arabic)
13. Manouba: Mannouba (variant)
14. Médenine: Madanīn, Medenin (variant); Madanīyīn (Arabic)
15. Monastir: Al Munastīr (Arabic)
16. Nabeul: Cap Bon (obsolete); Nabil, Nābol (variant); Nābul (Arabic)
17. Sfax: Ṣafāqis (Arabic); Ṣfāqis (variant)
18. Sidi Bou Zid: Qamudah, Sidi Boû Sa`îd, Sidi Buzid, Sidi Bū Sa`īd (variant); Sīdī Bū Zayd (Arabic)
19. Siliana: Siliānah (variant); Silyānah (Arabic)
20. Sousse: Sousa, Sussa, Susse (variant); Susa (Italian, Spanish); Sūsah (Arabic)
21. Tataouine: Foum Tataouine, Tatahouine, Tatuine (variant); Taţāwīn (Arabic)
22. Tozeur: Tawzar (Arabic); Touzar, Tūzar (variant)
23. Tunis: Tounis, Tunis City, Tūnus (variant); Túnez (Spanish); Túnis (Portuguese); Tunisi (Italian); Tūnis (Arabic)
24. Zaghouan: Tunis South (obsolete); Zachouan, Zaguan (variant); Zaghwān (Arabic)

Population history:

Sources: 1975 census from Encyclopædia Britannica, 1984 edition; 1984 census from The Statesman's Year-Book (SY), 1993-94 edition; 1994 census from "Ershiyi (21) Shiji Shijie Diming Lu", a Chinese three-volume world gazetteer; 2004 census from Tunisian National Statistics Institute . However, the total for 1994 is taken from this summary report .

This UNDP document  has 1994 and 2004 census data, rounded to the nearest thousand. Its 1994 figures differ from Ershiyi by no more than 1.85% in each governorate. The 1994 total in the UNDP document and the one in the summary report are the same, within rounding error. Unfortunately, the total of the populations given in Ershiyi is 8,735,875, off by almost 50,000. If we could assume that Ershiyi had transposed the second and fourth digits in the population of Gabès, and that it was actually 360,143, that would make the total for Tunisia come out with an error of only 11. However, if that were the case, Ershiyi and the UNDP would be in excessive disagreement over Gabès.