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A medina (from ar, مدينة, translit=madīnah, lit=city) is a historical district in a number of
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
n cities, often corresponding to an old
walled city. The term comes from the Arabic word simply meaning "city" or "town".
Historical background
Prior to the rise and intrusion of European
colonial rule
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose the ...
in North Africa, the region was home to many major cities which had long been centres of culture, commerce, and political power over many centuries.
In Algeria, the
French conquest that began in 1830 and brought the country under colonial control resulted in significant destruction of the urban fabric of its historic cities. Colonial rule also led to the dismantling of many traditional urban institutions, the disruption of local culture, and even a certain level of depopulation over time.
Fewer cities have preserved their pre-colonial urban fabric in Algeria by comparison with neighbouring countries, but significant remains have been preserved in historic cities such as
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
,
Tlemcen
Tlemcen (; ar, تلمسان, translit=Tilimsān) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran, and capital of the Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the por ...
,
Nedroma
Nedroma ( ar, ندرومة) is a city in Tlemcen Province, in northwestern Algeria, about from Tlemcen. Once the capital of Trara, it was built on the ruins of a Berber town by Abd al-Mu'min the Almohad caliph. It has a great Islamic history, ...
, and
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
, as well as in many
Saharan towns.
In Algiers, most of the historic lower town was demolished and remodeled along European lines after the French conquest. The only part of the old city that remained relatively untouched was the upper town, which contained the citadel (''
qasaba
A kasbah (, also ; ar, قَـصَـبَـة, qaṣaba, lit=fortress, , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term ''alca ...
'') and the former residence of the rulers, and thus became known as the
"Casbah" of Algiers.
The fate of traditional walled cities in Tunisia and Morocco, which also came under French colonial rule over the next hundred years, was quite different.
The
French conquest of Tunisia
The French conquest of Tunisia occurred in two phases in 1881: the first (28 April – 12 May) consisting of the invasion and securing of the country before the signing of a treaty of protection, and the second (10 June – 28 October) consisting ...
took place in 1881 and resulted in the establishment of a
French "Protectorate", while nominally retaining the existing
Tunisian monarchy
Tunisian may refer to:
* Someone or something connected to Tunisia
*Tunisian Arabic
*Tunisian people
*Tunisian cuisine
* Tunisian culture
Tunisian culture is a product of more than three thousand years of history and an important multi-ethnic ...
. In Tunisia the French generally built new planned cities (the ''
Villes Nouvelles'') outside the established historic cities.
These new planned towns were almost exclusively inhabited by European colonists while the indigenous population predominantly resided in the old districts, resulting in a certain level of
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
during the colonial period.
Some French
assimilationist
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
The different types of cultural assi ...
policies, as witnessed in Algeria, were also implemented in Tunisia.
In
Tunis
''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois
, population_note =
, population_urban =
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, population_density_km2 =
, timezone1 = CET
, utc_offset1 ...
, the old city was preserved but it was physically linked with the European town, making it easier to police, while its traditional economic and administrative systems were marginalized, rendering it dependent on the European districts.
The most important preserved historic towns or medinas today include those of Tunis,
Kairouan
Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by th ...
,
Mahdia
Mahdia ( ar, المهدية ') is a Tunisian coastal city with 62,189 inhabitants, south of Monastir and southeast of Sousse.
Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax
Sfax (; ar, صفاقس, Ṣafāqis ) is a city in Tunisia, located ...
,
Sfax
Sfax (; ar, صفاقس, Ṣafāqis ) is a city in Tunisia, located southeast of Tunis. The city, founded in AD849 on the ruins of Berber Taparura, is the capital of the Sfax Governorate (about 955,421 inhabitants in 2014), and a Mediterrane ...
, and
Sousse
Sousse or Soussa ( ar, سوسة, ; Berber:''Susa'') is a city in Tunisia, capital of the Sousse Governorate. Located south of the capital Tunis, the city has 271,428 inhabitants (2014). Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf ...
.
In Morocco, the
Treaty of Fes
The Treaty of Fes ( ar, معاهدة فاس, ), officially the Treaty Concluded Between France and Morocco on 30 March 1912, for the Organization of the French Protectorate in the Sherifien Empire (), was a treaty signed by Sultan Abd al-Hafid o ...
established
another French Protectorate over that country in 1912. The first French
resident general
A resident minister, or resident for short, is a government official required to take up permanent residence in another country. A representative of his government, he officially has diplomatic functions which are often seen as a form of indir ...
in Morocco,
Hubert Lyautey
Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey (17 November 1854 – 27 July 1934) was a French Army general and colonial administrator. After serving in Indochina and Madagascar, he became the first French Resident-General in Morocco from 1912 to 1925. Early in ...
, appointed
Henri Prost
Henri Prost (February 25, 1874 – July 16, 1959) was a French architect and urban planner. He was noted in particularly for his work in Morocco and Turkey, where he created a number of comprehensive city plans for Casablanca, Fes, Marrakes ...
to oversee the urban development of cities under his control.
One important colonial policy with long-term consequences was the decision to largely forego development of existing historic cities and to deliberately preserve them as sites of historic heritage, the "medinas". The French administration again built new planned cities outside the old walled cities, where European settlers largely resided with modern Western-style amenities. This was part of a larger "policy of association" adopted by Lyautey which favoured various forms of indirect colonial rule by preserving local institutions and elites, in contrast with other French colonial policies favouring assimilation.
The desire to preserve historic cities was also consistent with one of the trends in European ideas about urban planning at the time which argued for the preservation of historic cities in Europe – ideas which Lyautey himself favored.
Scholar
Janet Abu-Lughod
Janet Lippman Abu-Lughod (August 3, 1928 – December 14, 2013) was an American sociologist who made major contributions to world-systems theory and urban sociology.
Early life
Raised in Newark, New Jersey, she attended Weequahic High School, ...
has argued that French urban policies and regulations created a kind of urban "apartheid" between the indigenous Moroccan urban areas – which were forced to remain stagnant in terms of urban development – and the new planned cities which were mainly inhabited by Europeans and expanded to occupy rural lands outside the city which were formerly used by Moroccans.
This separation was partly softened by wealthy Moroccans who started moving into the ''Villes Nouvelles'' during the colonial period.
List of medinas
Algeria
*
Casbah of Algiers, a medina named after its fortress
*
Casbah of Dellys
The Casbah of Dellys () is a historic kasbah or medina quarter, the old town in the city of Dellys, Algeria. The kasbah is known for Ottoman Algeria-era buildings and cityscape. Today it is a favorite spot for tourism in Boumerdès Province.
Hist ...
Libya
*
Derna
*
Ghadames
Ghadames or Ghadamis ( Berber: ''ʕadémis''; ar, غدامس, Libyan vernacular: ''ɣdāməs'', Latin: ''Cidamus, Cydamus'', it, Gadames) is an oasis Berber town in the Nalut District of the Tripolitania region in northwestern Libya.
The i ...
*
Gharyan
Gharyan is a city in northwestern Libya, in Jabal al Gharbi District, located 80 km south of Tripoli. Prior to 2007, it was the administrative seat of Gharyan District. Gharyan is one of the largest towns in the Western Mountains.
In 2005, ...
*
Hun
*
Murzuk
Murzuk, Murzuq, Murzug or Merzug ( ar, مرزق) is an oasis town and the capital of the Murzuq District in the Fezzan region of southwest Libya.Robinson, Harry (1960) "Murzuq" ''The Mediterranean Lands'' University Tutorial Press, London, p. 414 ...
*
Tripoli
Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to:
Cities and other geographic units Greece
*Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in ...
*
Waddan
*
Tazirbu
Tazerbu ( ar, تازربو) is an oasis located in the Libyan Desert in the Kufra District of Libya, about 250 km to the northwest of Kufra.Bertarelli (1929), p. 515. The name means "main seat" in the Toubou language, because this was the sea ...
*
Benghazi
Benghazi () , ; it, Bengasi; tr, Bingazi; ber, Bernîk, script=Latn; also: ''Bengasi'', ''Benghasi'', ''Banghāzī'', ''Binghāzī'', ''Bengazi''; grc, Βερενίκη (''Berenice'') and ''Hesperides''., group=note (''lit. Son of he Ghazi ...
Morocco
*
Asilah
Asilah (; ar, أزيلا or أصيلة; pt, Arzila; es, Arcila) is a fortified town on the northwest tip of the Atlantic coast of Morocco, about south of Tangier. Its ramparts and gateworks remain fully intact.
History
The town's history da ...
*
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
*
Chefchaouen
Chefchaouen ( ar, شفشاون, Shafshāwan, ), also known as Chaouen (), is a city in northwest Morocco. It is the chief town of the province of the same name and is noted for its buildings in shades of blue, for which it is nicknamed the "Blu ...
*
Essaouira
*
Fes el Bali
Fes el Bali ( ar, فاس البالي, lit=Old Fes, ber, ⴼⴰⵙ ⴰⵇⴷⵉⵎ) is the oldest walled part of Fez, Morocco. Fes el Bali was founded as the capital of the Idrisid dynasty between 789 and 808 AD. UNESCO listed Fes el Bali, alon ...
, the first medina of Fes (considered one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world)
*
Fes Jdid
Fes Jdid or Fes el-Jdid () is one of the three parts of Fez, Morocco. It was founded by the Marinids in 1276 as an extension of Fes el Bali (the old city or ''medina'') and as a royal citadel and capital. It is occupied in large part by the hi ...
, the second medina of Fes
*
Marrakesh
Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...
*
Meknes
Meknes ( ar, مكناس, maknās, ; ber, ⴰⵎⴽⵏⴰⵙ, amknas; french: Meknès) is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco, located in northern central Morocco and the sixth largest city by population in the kingdom. Founded in the 11th c ...
*
Rabat
Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populati ...
*
Salé
Salé ( ar, سلا, salā, ; ber, ⵙⵍⴰ, sla) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Founded in about 1030 by the Banu Ifran ...
*
Tangier
Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the cap ...
*
Taroudant
Taroudant (; ar, تارودانت, Latn, ar, tārūdānt, ) is a city in the Sous Valley in south western Morocco. It is situated east of Agadir on the road to Ouarzazate and the Sahara desert and south of Marrakesh. The town is known as the "Gr ...
*
Taza
*
Tétouan
Tétouan ( ar, تطوان, tiṭwān, ber, ⵜⵉⵟⵟⴰⵡⴰⵏ, tiṭṭawan; es, Tetuán) is a city in northern Morocco. It lies along the Martil Valley and is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea, a few miles so ...
Tunisia
*
Hammamet
*
Kairouan
Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by th ...
*
Monastir
*
Sfax
Sfax (; ar, صفاقس, Ṣafāqis ) is a city in Tunisia, located southeast of Tunis. The city, founded in AD849 on the ruins of Berber Taparura, is the capital of the Sfax Governorate (about 955,421 inhabitants in 2014), and a Mediterrane ...
*
Sousse
Sousse or Soussa ( ar, سوسة, ; Berber:''Susa'') is a city in Tunisia, capital of the Sousse Governorate. Located south of the capital Tunis, the city has 271,428 inhabitants (2014). Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf ...
*
Tozeur
Tozeur ( ar, توزر, ; ber, ⵜⵓⵣⴻⵔ, Tuzər) is a city in southwest Tunisia. The city is located northwest of Chott el Djerid, in between this Chott and the smaller Chott el Gharsa. It is the capital of Tozeur Governorate. It was the ...
*
Tunis
''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois
, population_note =
, population_urban =
, population_metro = 2658816
, population_density_km2 =
, timezone1 = CET
, utc_offset1 ...
References
External links
Map of Tunis medinaCarfree Cities: Morocco{{Islamic architecture
Arabic architecture
Berber architecture
Islamic architecture
Maghreb
Urban planning
*