Tozeur

33.9219444444448.1316666666667Koordinaten: 33 ° 55 ' N, 8 ° 8' O

Tozeur (Arabic توزر, DMG Tauzar ), the Roman Tusuros, is a town in southern Tunisia with 32,400 inhabitants ( 2004). The Gouvernementshauptstadt lies on the northwestern edge of the salt lake Chott el Jerid between Gafsa, Kebili and Nefta and is the center of Djerid Region / بلاد الجريد /, land of date palms '.

Description

A special feature of Tozeur is the Lehmziegelarchitektur, which is characteristic of this area of Tunisia. Examples of this can be found both in modern buildings as well as in the old town with its narrow lanes and covered tunnel paths.

Tozeur consists of the actual city and one in the south and east following about 10 km ² oasis. Despite the extreme climatic conditions ( high temperatures up to 50 ° C, annual rainfall between 80 and 120 mm ) which fed by fossil water reserves oasis is very fertile. A disastrous fire in the nineties destroyed a large part of the oasis vegetation, especially many of the date palm, so that the once extremely popular oasis presented today in a changed landscape. The locally grown dates form the livelihood of the local population since time immemorial. Earlier also the caravan trade played a role. Its omission as an economic factor was offset by tourism. West of the city is the airport Tozeur - Nefta. Tozeur has a railway station and terminus of the railway line from Gafsa Coming.

Sons and daughters of the town

• Abu Yazid ( 873-947 ), Berber leader in the fight against the Fatimids
• Abu al -Qasim al- Shabbi (1909-1934), Tunisian poet
• Youssef Seddik ( born 1943 ), Tunisian philosopher and anthropologist

Tozeur as a filming location

Tozeur and the surrounding area were filmed for the Oscar-winning science fiction movies Star Wars by George Lucas. Much of the published in 1996, winning nine Oscars feature film The English Patient was filmed in Tozeur and the immediate surrounding area. The ZDF was 1972, the first season of the Karl May novels based on television series Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi rotate among other things in Tozeur and the adjacent Nefta.

Trivia

The Italian pop singer Alice brought together in 1984 with Franco Battiato the single I Treni di Tozeur ( to German: Trains of Tozeur ) on the market and gave the oasis city in Europe so that a greater level of awareness.