__NOTOC__ Gabès Governorate ( ') is one of the 24 governorates of

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

and in south-eastern Tunisia. It covers an area of 7166 km² and had a population of 374,300 as at the 2014 census.Census 2014 (National Institute of Statistics)
The capital is

Gabès Gabès (, ; ar, قابس, ), also spelled Cabès, Cabes, Kabes, Gabbs and Gaps, is the capital city of the Gabès Governorate in Tunisia. It is located on the coast of the Gulf of Gabès. With a population of 152,921, Gabès is the 6th largest ...

Geography

The governorate of Gabès is in southeast Tunisia on the coast of the

Gulf of Gabès The Gulf of Gabes (or Cabès, Cabes, Gaps; ar, خليج قابس, ḫalīǧ Qābis), also known as Lesser Syrtis (from grc, Μικρά Σύρτις, Mikrá Sýrtis; la, Syrtis Minor), contrasting with the Greater Syrtis in Libya, is a gulf on ...

, 376 km south of the capital,

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

. Gabès has a hot Mediterranean climate. Gabès offers five contrasting landscapes: the beach, the mountains, the desert, small forest,

oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

. It contains the eastern end of

Chott el Fejej Chott el Fejej, also known as Chott el Fedjedj and Chott el Fejaj, is a long, narrow inlet of the endorheic salt lake Chott el Djerid in southern Tunisia. History and geography The bottom of Chott el Fejej lies below sea level and runs in a na ...

. The coast is approximately half of that of the large bay. The gulf has several alternative names dating to antiquity and to an etymological association with onshore winds and sandbanks making navigation difficult, including Lesser Syrtis (see

Gulf of Sidra The Gulf of Sidra ( ar, خليج السدرة, Khalij as-Sidra, also known as the Gulf of Sirte ( ar, خليج سرت, Khalij Surt, is a body of water in the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya, named after the oil port of Sidra or ...

which takes in also the mainly Libyan portion of the continental gulf).

Administrative divisions

Administratively, the governorate is divided into ten delegations (''

mutamadiyat The delegations of Tunisia (''mutamadiyah'', plural ''mutamadiyat'') are the second level administrative divisions of Tunisia between the governorates and the sectors (''imadats''). there were 24 governorates which were divided into 264 deleg ...

''), ten

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

, nine rural councils, and 73 sectors (''imadas''). The delegations and their populations from the 2004 and 2014 censuses, are listed below: Ten municipalities are in Gabès Governorate:

Tourism

Matmata is a Berber-speaking town largely of underground homes conserved with a community-based pre-industrialized lifestyle. The south-centre of the ''Wilāyat'' has semi-desert mountains and natural features nearby include splendid oases and caves. Eclectic souqs feature in the main municipalities, with traditional wood, stone, metal and textile products.

References

Governorates of Tunisia {{Tunisia-geo-stub