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Roots Earth in Kairouan: audio stories about 40 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 40 places in Kairouan, Tunisia, in Africa. The Kairouan stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Kairouan, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 40 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: kairouan.md

The 40 places in Kairouan with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Great Mosque of Kairouan
  2. Medina of Kairouan
  3. Zawiya of Sidi Sahib (Mosque of the Barber)
  4. Aghlabid Basins
  5. Mosque of the Three Doors
  6. Zaouia of Sidi Abid el Ghariani
  7. Bir Barrouta
  8. Raqqada National Museum of Islamic Art
  9. The Blue Quran (Raqqada folios)
  10. Kairouan City Walls & Gates
  11. Bab ech Chouhada
  12. Bab Tunis
  13. Rue Essouk (Medina Souk)
  14. Place de la Victoire (Bab ech Chouhada Square)
  15. Zaouia of Sidi Amor Abbada (Mosque of the Sabres)
  16. Aghlabid Heritage of Kairouan
  17. Uqba ibn Nafi Founding Legacy
  18. Kairouan Carpet & Knotting Tradition
  19. Maliki School of Kairouan
  20. Makroudh of Kairouan
  21. Sufi Shrines of Kairouan
  22. Kairouan in the Islamic Golden Age
  23. Kairouan Governorate Seat
  24. Kairouan: Fourth Holy City of Islam
  25. The Tunisian Sahel Around Kairouan
  26. Husainid-Era Monuments
  27. Kairouan UNESCO World Heritage Site
  28. Medina Residential Quarters (Houmas)
  29. Central Souk Spice & Produce Market
  30. Makroudh Bakeries Lane
  31. Kairouan Carpet Workshops
  32. Medina Mint-Tea Cafes
  33. Kairouan Weekly Souk (Monday Market)
  34. Ville Nouvelle & Avenue Bourguiba
  35. Kairouan Municipal Park
  36. Brik & Harissa Eateries
  37. Sidi Sahib Pilgrim Quarter
  38. Kairouan Old Muslim Cemetery
  39. Aghlabid Basins Promenade
  40. Medina Craft & Coppersmith Workshops

Is there an audio guide for Great Mosque of Kairouan?

Yes. Great Mosque of Kairouan has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 40 Kairouan places in the app, at 35.6814, 10.1036. Every one of the other 39 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Kairouan

Open Roots Earth and choose Kairouan. The city has its own map of places with all 40 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 40 places in Kairouan, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 40 places in Kairouan, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Great Mosque of Kairouan

Coordinates
35.6814, 10.1036
In one line
Founded in 670 and rebuilt by the Aghlabids in 836, this vast hypostyle mosque is the oldest in the Maghreb. Its courtyard, forest of ancient columns, and tiered minaret shaped Islamic architecture across North Africa and Spain.

2. Medina of Kairouan

Coordinates
35.67722, 10.10083
In one line
Founded in 670, this walled old city is the historic heart of Islam's fourth holy city. Its ramparts, vaulted souks, whitewashed houses, and many shrines earned it a place on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1988.

3. Zawiya of Sidi Sahib (Mosque of the Barber)

Coordinates
35.6821, 10.0903
In one line
This shrine honors a Companion of the Prophet said to be buried with hairs from his beard, earning the nickname Mosque of the Barber. Largely 17th-century, it dazzles with tiled courtyards, carved stucco, and a domed mausoleum.

4. Aghlabid Basins

Coordinates
35.68656, 10.09558
In one line
Built in the 860s, these great open reservoirs stored water carried by aqueduct across 36 kilometers of dry country. A masterpiece of Aghlabid engineering, the larger basin spans roughly 128 meters and held more than 57,000 cubic meters.

5. Mosque of the Three Doors

Coordinates
35.67731, 10.10261
In one line
Founded in 866 by Muhammad ibn Khairun, this small mosque carries one of the earliest carved-stone facades in Islamic architecture. Three horseshoe doorways sit beneath bands of Kufic inscription and floral carving, a landmark of early Islamic art.

6. Zaouia of Sidi Abid el Ghariani

Coordinates
35.6752, 10.1006
In one line
Begun in the late 14th century, this Hafsid teaching shrine sits in the heart of the medina. Behind its modest door lie tiled patios, painted Moorish ceilings, fine woodwork, and the tombs of the holy man and a Hafsid sultan.

7. Bir Barrouta

Coordinates
35.6778, 10.1012
In one line
Housed in a building of 1690, this historic well is famous for the camel that turns its wooden water wheel upstairs. Legend links its water to the sacred spring of Zamzam in Mecca, and pilgrims drink it as a blessing.

8. Raqqada National Museum of Islamic Art

Coordinates
35.59624, 10.0569
In one line
Tunisia's National Museum of Islamic Art occupies a former presidential palace at Raqqada, the Aghlabid capital founded in 876. Opened in 1986, it gathers ceramics, coins, calligraphy and folios of the celebrated Blue Quran.

9. The Blue Quran (Raqqada folios)

Coordinates
35.59624, 10.0569
In one line
One of Islamic art's most famous manuscripts, the Blue Quran is written in gold Kufic on parchment dyed deep indigo. Dated to the 9th or 10th century, its largest surviving group, 67 folios, rests in Raqqada's museum near Kairouan.

10. Kairouan City Walls & Gates

Coordinates
35.6793, 10.0998
In one line
Brick ramparts ring the holy medina of Kairouan, first raised in 762 under the Abbasids and rebuilt many times since. Pierced by historic gates and braced with buttresses and towers, they enclose a UNESCO World Heritage old city.

11. Bab ech Chouhada

Coordinates
35.6737, 10.1004
In one line
Bab ech Chouhada, the Gate of the Martyrs, is the main southern entrance to Kairouan's medina. Its arched gateway opens directly onto the souks, making it the busy ceremonial threshold where most visitors first step into the holy old city.

12. Bab Tunis

Coordinates
35.6805, 10.1002
In one line
Bab Tunis is the northern gate of Kairouan's medina, opening toward the road to the capital, Tunis. Rebuilt over the centuries and set among the brick ramparts, it marks the historic landward approach to the holy old city from the north.

13. Rue Essouk (Medina Souk)

Coordinates
35.6762, 10.1012
In one line
Rue Essouk is the medieval market spine of Kairouan's medina, a chain of vaulted lanes running inward from the gates. Famous for hand-knotted carpets, leather and makroudh sweets, it remains the busy commercial heart of the holy old city.

14. Place de la Victoire (Bab ech Chouhada Square)

Coordinates
35.6741, 10.1003
In one line
Place de la Victoire is the open square at Bab ech Chouhada, the main gateway to Kairouan's medina. Ringed by cafe terraces and framed by the gate and ramparts, it is the chief meeting point where visitors gather before entering the holy old city.

15. Zaouia of Sidi Amor Abbada (Mosque of the Sabres)

Coordinates
35.6817, 10.0968
In one line
A 19th-century shrine crowned by seven white domes, built around the tomb of Sidi Amor Abbada, a Kairouan blacksmith-mystic. Inside hang the colossal sabres, anchors, and chests he forged.

16. Aghlabid Heritage of Kairouan

Coordinates
35.679, 10.101
In one line
The 9th-century dynasty that made Kairouan its capital and golden age. Founded in 800 by Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab, the Aghlabids rebuilt the Great Mosque, dug the great basins, and conquered Sicily before falling in 909.

17. Uqba ibn Nafi Founding Legacy

Coordinates
35.6814, 10.1036
In one line
The Arab general who founded Kairouan in 670 as the first Muslim city of the Maghreb. The Great Mosque bears his name, and his sweeping conquests to the Atlantic ended in his death in battle in 683.

18. Kairouan Carpet & Knotting Tradition

Coordinates
35.6765, 10.1015
In one line
Tunisia's carpet capital, famed for hand-knotted rugs. The tradition is said to have begun in the 19th century with a governor's daughter, and the city's zerbia medallion rugs and natural-toned alloucha are known across the country.

19. Maliki School of Kairouan

Coordinates
35.6814, 10.1036
In one line
One of Sunni Islam's four schools of law, founded by Malik ibn Anas in 8th-century Medina. Kairouan became its great western center, where the jurist Sahnun produced the Mudawwana and the Great Mosque taught Maliki teaching across the Maghreb.

20. Makroudh of Kairouan

Coordinates
35.676, 10.101
In one line
Kairouan's emblematic sweet, a diamond of semolina dough filled with date paste, fried or baked, then steeped in honey or syrup. The lozenge shape defines it, and the city is famous across Tunisia for making it.

21. Sufi Shrines of Kairouan

Coordinates
35.68, 10.095
In one line
The mystical heart of the holy city, expressed through zawiyas and saints' tombs. Sufism, Islam's inward path of devotion and remembrance, fills Kairouan with shrines where pilgrims honor local holy men and seek their blessing.

22. Kairouan in the Islamic Golden Age

Coordinates
35.679, 10.1015
In one line
During the Islamic Golden Age, roughly the 8th to 13th centuries, Kairouan rose as a celebrated seat of learning and faith. Its scholars, jurists, and physicians placed the city among the great intellectual centers of the medieval Muslim world.

23. Kairouan Governorate Seat

Coordinates
35.66667, 10.1
In one line
As capital of Kairouan Governorate, created in 1956, the city serves as the administrative heart of a landlocked central Tunisian region of roughly 6,712 square kilometers, home to about 600,000 people across eleven delegations of farmland, plains, and modest mountains.

24. Kairouan: Fourth Holy City of Islam

Coordinates
35.6781, 10.0963
In one line
Founded around 670 by Uqba ibn Nafi, Kairouan is widely honored as Islam's fourth holiest city, after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. A local tradition holds that seven pilgrimages to its Great Mosque equal one journey to Mecca.

25. The Tunisian Sahel Around Kairouan

Coordinates
35.6781, 10.0963
In one line
East of Kairouan lies the Tunisian Sahel, a coastal belt of olive groves and historic towns including Sousse, Monastir, and Mahdia. Though inland Kairouan is not part of it, the holy city long shaped this prosperous, sea-facing region's development.

26. Husainid-Era Monuments

Coordinates
35.6778, 10.1012
In one line
The Husainid dynasty, founded in 1705 and ruling Tunisia as Beys until 1957, left an architectural mark across the country. In Kairouan its era shaped restored mosques, shrines, and civic buildings during more than two centuries of beylical rule under Ottoman, then French, influence.

27. Kairouan UNESCO World Heritage Site

Coordinates
35.6781, 10.10083
In one line
Inscribed by UNESCO in 1988, the Medina of Kairouan protects a 7th-century holy city of outstanding universal value. Its core zone of about 68 hectares safeguards the Great Mosque, the Mosque of the Three Doors, the Aghlabid basins, and the historic urban fabric.

28. Medina Residential Quarters (Houmas)

Coordinates
35.6768, 10.1018
In one line
Behind the monuments, Kairouan's medina is a living neighborhood of whitewashed houses, courtyards, and narrow lanes called houmas. Here families, craftsmen, and shopkeepers carry on daily life among ramparts and gates that have framed the old city for centuries.

29. Central Souk Spice & Produce Market

Coordinates
35.6758, 10.1014
In one line
Inside Kairouan's medina, the central souk gathers spice merchants and produce sellers under vaulted lanes. Mounds of chili, cumin and harissa paste sit beside fruit, herbs and the everyday provisions of a holy city.

30. Makroudh Bakeries Lane

Coordinates
35.6755, 10.1008
In one line
A lane of bakeries devoted to makroudh, Kairouan's famous diamond-shaped semolina pastry filled with date paste and soaked in honey or syrup. The city is so identified with the sweet that travelers carry boxes home across Tunisia.

31. Kairouan Carpet Workshops

Coordinates
35.677, 10.102
In one line
Kairouan is Tunisia's carpet capital, where workshops knot wool rugs by hand. Its medallion zarbia, natural-toned alloucha and woven mergoum carpets sustain a craft long passed from mother to daughter, with looms and showrooms threading the medina.

32. Medina Mint-Tea Cafes

Coordinates
35.6745, 10.1005
In one line
In Kairouan's medina cafes, sweet green tea steeped with fresh mint is poured from a height and crowned with floating pine nuts. The glass is a gesture of welcome, central to Tunisian hospitality and the unhurried social life of the old city.

33. Kairouan Weekly Souk (Monday Market)

Coordinates
35.67, 10.09
In one line
Once a week, a sprawling open-air souk gathers on Kairouan's edge, drawing farmers and traders from across the plain. Livestock, produce, secondhand goods and household wares change hands in a centuries-old rural market ritual.

34. Ville Nouvelle & Avenue Bourguiba

Coordinates
35.671, 10.095
In one line
Beyond the medina walls lies Kairouan's Ville Nouvelle, the modern town that grew after the French took the city in 1881. Its straight avenues, named for independence leader Habib Bourguiba, hold the cafes, shops and civic life of the contemporary city.

35. Kairouan Municipal Park

Coordinates
35.672, 10.097
In one line
A 20th-century public garden in the modern town, it serves as a gathering place for families, children and elders away from the busy streets.

36. Brik & Harissa Eateries

Coordinates
35.673, 10.098
In one line
In the lanes off the medina, small eateries fry brik to order, a crisp triangle of pastry around a runny egg, tuna and parsley, served with harissa, the fiery Tunisian chili paste that flavors nearly every table here.

37. Sidi Sahib Pilgrim Quarter

Coordinates
35.6815, 10.0908
In one line
The streets around the Zawiya of Sidi Sahib form a living pilgrim quarter, where families come to honor a Companion of the Prophet said to be buried with three hairs of his beard, and where weddings, blessings and visitors fill the lanes.

38. Kairouan Old Muslim Cemetery

Coordinates
35.68, 10.094
In one line
Beyond the walls of the medina spread Kairouan's old Muslim burial grounds, fields of low whitewashed graves where the faithful long sought to be laid to rest in a city counted among the holiest in Islam, near its saints and its founder.

39. Aghlabid Basins Promenade

Coordinates
35.686, 10.096
In one line
The walkway encircling the great Aghlabid reservoirs has become a favorite local promenade, where Kairouan families gather at dusk beside a ninth-century engineering marvel, its huge 128-meter basin still holding a wide mirror of water.

40. Medina Craft & Coppersmith Workshops

Coordinates
35.6764, 10.1024
In one line
In the medina's vaulted lanes, coppersmiths hammer trays and lamps while weavers, leatherworkers and woodcarvers fill open workshops, keeping alive the hand-crafts of a city famous across Tunisia for its carpets, copperware and sweets.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

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