Sousse South: Sfax the Olive Oil Capital, the El Abassia Region, the Sahel Olive Landscape, and the South Tunisia Circuit
The Sousse south route covers Sfax as the most commercially important single Tunisian city after Tunis, the Sfax medina as the most intact single Tunisian trading city medina, the Sahel olive landscape, and the south Tunisia circuit from Sousse.
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Sfax: The Second Tunisian City
Sfax, 130 kilometers south of Sousse, is the most commercially important single Tunisian city after Tunis with the most productive single Tunisian fishing port, the most extensive single Tunisian olive oil export industry (the Sfax region produces 30% of all Tunisian olive oil), and the most completely preserved single Tunisian trading city medina outside Tunis. The Sfax medina Bab Diwan gate is the most architecturally refined single Tunisian city gate outside the Tunis medina.
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Sfax Medina: The Merchant City
The Sfax medina, the most completely commercial single Tunisian medina (the most actively trading single Tunisian medina with the most unchanged single commercial function from the medieval period to the present) with the textile souk, the gold market, and the most continuously operating single Tunisian urban trade network, is the most authentic single Tunisian medina for the visitor seeking the least touristified single Tunisian city center shopping experience.
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Sahel Olive Landscape: The Tunisian Agricultural Heart
The Sahel olive landscape extending from Sousse to Sfax (the most intensely olive-cultivated single agricultural region in Tunisia with 26 million olive trees covering the most extensive single contiguous olive cultivation zone in the Mediterranean) produces the most commercially significant single Tunisian agricultural export and the most historically continuous single Mediterranean agricultural tradition from the Punic period to the present.
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Kerkennah Islands: The Sfax Offshore Retreat
The Kerkennah Islands (20 kilometers off the Sfax coast, accessible by ferry from the Sfax port) are the most undeveloped single Tunisian island group with the flat coral landscape, the traditional octopus trap fishing (the most authentic single Tunisian traditional fishing technique using the palm frond weirs), and the most completely car-free single Tunisian island interior. The Kerkennah are the most authentically non-touristic single Tunisian island destination.
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Thuburbo Majus: The Roman Agricultural City
Thuburbo Majus (70 kilometers southwest of Sousse near Zaghouan) is the most completely excavated single Roman agricultural city in the Tunisian interior with the Capitol temple, the most complete single Roman palaestra (exercise hall) in Tunisia, and the most extensively mosaic-floored single private Roman house collection in the Tunisian interior. Thuburbo Majus represents the most typical single Roman provincial town life in the Africa Proconsularis.
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Zaghouan: The Roman Aqueduct Source
Zaghouan (70 kilometers southwest of Tunis) is the source of the most completely traceable single Roman aqueduct in North Africa (the Zaghouan-Carthage aqueduct, 132 kilometers long, the longest single Roman aqueduct outside Rome) with the Temple of the Waters at Zaghouan spring (the most architecturally dramatic single Roman spring temple in Tunisia) providing the most direct single contact with the Roman hydraulic engineering that supplied Carthage with the most comprehensive single Roman African city water system.