History of Tunisia - Names

Names

Tunisia, al-Jumhuriyyah at-Tunisiyyah, is a sovereign republic. Yet the country's proper name has changed radically more than once over the course of millennia. Hence, such a term as "ancient Tunisia" is frankly anachronistic. Nonetheless, "Tunisia" will be used throughout this history for the sake of continuity.

Undoubtedly, the most ancient Berbers had various names for their land and settlements here, one early Punic-era Berber name being Massyli. After the Phoenicians arrived, their city of Carthage evolved to assume a dominant position over much of the western Mediterranean; this city-state gave its name to the region. Following the Punic Wars, the Romans established here their Province of Africa, taking the then not-widely-known name of Africa from a Berber word for 'the people'. The Roman capital was the rebuilt city of Carthage. After the Arab and Muslim conquest, this name continued in use, as the region was called in Arabic Ifriqiya. Its capital was relocated to the newly-built city of Kairouan. The Fatimids later moved the capital of Ifriqiya to Mahdia, a city they founded, but then the Zirids returned it to Kairouan.

In the twelfth century the Berber Almohads conquered the country and began to rule it from Tunis, an ancient but until-then unimportant city, which thus rose to become the capital. The whole country then came to be called Tunis after this city (near the ruins of ancient Carthage). Tunis continued as the capital under Turkish rule, and remains so today. Only in the last years of the nineteenth century, under the French protectorate, did the current name Tunisie or Tunisiyya, (Tunisia in English), come into common use.

During these millennia of history under different states, the names for the country changed. They include: Massyli, Carthage, Africa, Ifriqiya, Tunis, Tunisia.