Gabès

Gabès, town in southeastern Tunisia. Situated on a Mediterranean oasis along the Gulf of Gabes, the town is located at the mouth of the Wadi Qābis (Oued Gabès), which has its source 6 miles (10 km) upstream at the Ras al-Oued (springs), the town’s main water source. The town’s remains attest to Carthaginian settlement before it came under Roman rule, when it functioned as a trading centre known as Tacapae. The town was ruined during the Arab invasion in the mid- to late 7th century, but it was revived by the arrival of Sīdī Boulbaba, held to be a companion of the Prophet Muhammad and considered the town’s patron. Declining somewhat under Ottoman rule, it experienced a modest revival during the French protectorate (1881–1955) when a railway, a road network, and a port were constructed. The town was garrisoned by the French against Italian intrusion from nearby Libya. Germany’s Afrika Korps used Gabès as its headquarters during World War II before it was retaken by the British and French in 1943. The modern town is still an important oasis and trade centre, with some fishing, fruit growing, and textile milling in the vicinity. Modern industries include major cement and brick works and oil refineries and petrochemicals plants supplied by offshore oil and gas wells; there is also a modest tourism industry.

The surrounding area embraces much of semiarid south-central Tunisia. It contains the settlements of Matmata (Maṭmāṭah), which is the home of Amazigh (Berber) olive growers, Al-Ḥāmmah (El-Hamma), which is a trading centre of the Beni Zid nomads, and several other important oases. Pop. (2004) town, 116,323.