Kairouan

Kairouan occupies an inland plain, with a walled medina whose narrow, winding streets contrast with the straighter layout of its older suburbs. Courtyard houses present largely closed exterior walls, with larger openings directed towards internal courts. Minarets and domes punctuate this predominantly domestic fabric.

The city's religious importance is expressed through architecture that influenced other Maghreban towns, including the Great Mosque's columned prayer hall and porticoed courtyard. Water infrastructure also forms part of its urban heritage: the Aghlabid basins used communicating cisterns to supply the town. Together, housing, places of worship and reservoirs explain a settlement organised around both communal institutions and the provision of everyday urban needs.