Tamentit () (sometimes spelled Tamantit) is a town and ''commune'' or municipality in Fenoughil District of

Adrar Province Adrar ( ar, ولاية أدرار, ber, ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ) is a province (''wilaya'') in southwestern Algeria, named after its capital Adrar. It is the second-largest province, with an area of 424,948 km2, roughly the size of the US state o ...

, in south-central

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. According to the 2008 census it has a population of 9,481, up from 7,912 in 1998, with an annual growth rate of 1.9%. Until the late twentieth century the people of Tamentit spoke Taznatit Berber.

Geography

The villages of Tamentit are located near oases that are part of the

Tuat Tuat, or Touat, is a natural region of desert in central Algeria that contains a string of small oases. In the past, the oases were important for caravans crossing the Sahara. Geography Tuat lies to the south of the Grand Erg Occidental, to ...

region in northern Adrar Province, between the communes of

Adrar Adrar (in Tifinagh script "ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ"), a Berber word meaning "mountain", is the name of several areas in Northwest Africa: Algeria * Adrar, Algeria, a town in Algeria * Adrar Province, an administrative division of Algeria * Adrar District, ...

to the north and Fenoughil to the south. The rocky

Tademaït Tademaït is a natural region in the Sahara Desert right in the centre of Algeria. It is located north of In Salah and south of the Grand Erg Occidental in the Adrar District of Adrar Province, El Ménia District of Ghardaïa Province and the nor ...

plateau rises far to the east, while the sandy Erg Iguidi and

Erg Chech The Erg Chech ( ar, عرق شاش), is a large erg in southwestern Algeria and northern Mali. Geography It is an almost uninhabited part of the greater Sahara Desert, an inhospitable desert region with long, extremely hot summers and short, very w ...

deserts lie to the west. The Tamentit

iron meteorite Iron meteorites, also known as siderites, or ferrous meteorites, are a type of meteorite that consist overwhelmingly of an iron–nickel alloy known as meteoric iron that usually consists of two mineral phases: kamacite and taenite. Most iron met ...

was found nearby in 1864.Tamentit meteorite
at Meteoritical Bulletin Database. TamentitMeteorite

Climate

Tamentit has a hot

desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''BWh''), with extremely hot summers and mild winters, and very little

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

throughout the year.

Transportation

Tamentit is on the N6 national highway, which leads north to

and south to Fenoughil commune and eventually

Reggane Reggane (from Berber "Argan"; ar, رقان) is a town and commune, and the capital of Reggane District, in Adrar Province, central Algeria. Reggane lies in the Sahara Desert near an oasis. According to the 2008 census it has a population of 20,4 ...

. The village of Bouffaddi lies on the highway to the south of Tamentit, while the other villages of the commune are to the east of the highway, and are connected to it by local roads.

Education

5.9% of the population has a tertiary education, and another 17.9% has completed secondary education. The overall literacy rate is 75.6%, and is 85.9% among males and 65.2% among females.

Localities

As of 1984, the commune was composed of seven localities:

References

Neighbouring towns and cities

{{Adrar Province Communes of Adrar Province