Population
The present day Republic of Tunisia includes about ten million inhabitants, chiefly of Arab-Berber descent. Yet also a broad ethnic mix constitutes a substantial minority, coming from throughout the Mediterranean region, both east and west, many dating to the Phoenician, Roman, or Ottoman eras. Included are Sicilians and Greeks, Corsicans and French, Spanish and Germans, Egyptians and Jews, Circassians, Iranians, and Turks; also in this mix are Tunisians whose ancestry traces southward across the deserts to Black Africa. Arabic became the primary language following the 7th-century Muslim conquest, with French also widely spoken. Islam is the religion, 99% are said to be Sunni Muslims.
Read more about this topic: History Of Tunisia
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most. The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)