Kairouan Governorate ( ') is one of the twenty-four

governorates A governorate is an administrative division of a state. It is headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either states or provinces, the term ''governorate'' is often used in translation from ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

. It is landlocked and in the centre-east of the country. It covers an area of 6,712 km² and has a population of 570,559 (2014 census). The narrower province of Sousse borders it to the east, the nearest coastline The capital is

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 t ...

. Lowland parts of the province are semi-arid, experiencing in most years light rains in the winter months and scant rainfall in other months but higher parts attract

relief precipitation Orography is the study of the topographic relief of mountains, and can more broadly include hills, and any part of a region's elevated terrain. Orography (also known as ''oreography'', ''orology'' or ''oreology'') falls within the broader discipl ...

in and around the Djebel Zhagdoud and a large part of the Djebel Serj national parks, in the north-east of the province which are geologically outcrops of the Dorsal Atlas mountains in the province to the north.

Administrative divisions

The Kairouan Governorate is divided into eleven ''delegations'' ('' mutamadiyat''), listed below with their populations at the 2004 and 2014 Censuses, and further sub-divided into sectors (''imada''). Twelve municipalities are included within Kairouan Governorate:

Nature reserves

* Aïn Chrichira

References

Governorates of Tunisia {{Tunisia-geo-stub