Kerkennah Islands are a group of islands lying off the east coast of Tunisia

Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

 in the Gulf of Gabes

Gulf of Gabès

The Gulf of Gabès is a gulf on Tunisia's east coast in the Mediterranean Sea, off North Africa. The gulf roughly spans the coast from modern day the town of Mahrès in Sfax Gouvernorate to Djerba...

, at 34°42′N 11°11′E. The Islands are low-lying being no more than 13 metres above sea level. The main islands are Chergui

Chergui

Chergui is the largest of the Kerkennah Islands off the north coast of Tunisia. The name means "Easterner" in Arabic. The main town is Remla. The island has an area of 110 km2. The second largest island of the group, Gharbi, means "Westerner" in Arabic....

 and Gharbi. The archipelago has an area of 160 km² and a population of 14,400 (2006).

Kerkennah's main town, Remla

Remla

Remla is the main town of the Kerkennah Islands, Tunisia. A three-day Octopus Festival in March marks the start of the octopus fishing season.- External links :*...

 (on Chergui

Chergui

Chergui is the largest of the Kerkennah Islands off the north coast of Tunisia. The name means "Easterner" in Arabic. The main town is Remla. The island has an area of 110 km2. The second largest island of the group, Gharbi, means "Westerner" in Arabic....

) has a population of 2,000. The population of the islands significantly decreased during the 1980s due to drought

Drought

A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...

. The islands were unable to provide suitable irrigation

Irrigation

Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

 systems and, with clean water rapidly running out, many islanders were forced to leave for mainland Tunisia, the nearest town being Sfax

Sfax

Sfax is a city in Tunisia, located southeast of Tunis. The city, founded in AD 849 on the ruins of Taparura and Thaenae, is the capital of the Sfax Governorate , and a Mediterranean port. Sfax has population of 340,000...

.

Kerkennah has a lengthy, but simple history. The natives of Tunisia and Kerkennah originally settled there, but during the spread of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, Kerkennah was used as a port and look-out point by the Romans, to keep note of off-shore activity. However, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Kerkennah reverted to the natives. To this day, Kerkennah has been relatively untouched by modernization, and remains beautiful in its natural state.

The islands are warm and dry, with strong prevailing winds. This is mainly due to its positioning in the Gulf of Gabes, with strong sea winds (Gharbi

Gharbi

Gharbi is the second largest of the Kerkennah Islands off the north coast of Tunisia. The name means "Westerner" in Arabic. Chief town is Mellita. The island has an area of 69 km2. The largest island of the group, Chergui, means "Easterner" in Arabic....

), carried over the mainland, making them hot and dry. What little water vapour there is, is lost over cooler Tunisia first. This causes the general ecology of the island to mainly consist of tall xerophytic (and often halophytic) flora, such as palm

Arecaceae

Arecaceae or Palmae , are a family of flowering plants, the only family in the monocot order Arecales. There are roughly 202 currently known genera with around 2600 species, most of which are restricted to tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate climates...

s and saltbushes.

The land is arid, as if desertification was imminent. Agriculture, therefore, is not a key industry of Kerkennah, the islanders rely more on a self-sufficient basis, such as owning chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

s and goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s for their own personal consumption. Fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

, including a lot of octopus fishing, is also a key industry of Kerkennah, where it is exported to mainland Tunisia and other nearby countries.

Relative to the mainland and as a result of the lack of tourist attracting "endless" sandy beaches, tourism is limited in Kerkennah. Many mainland Tunisians spend their holidays in Kerkennah, and many more affluent Tunisians often build private second homes on the island. The Kerkennians have a negative view of road building on their island; apart from the main roads linking the port and main towns, there are only dirt tracks, which is how they desire it to stay. This causes a far from homogeneous appearance. There are some British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

tourists, but German tourism declined after a severe storm hit Kerkennah one year . Such storms are rare for Kerkennah, but temperatures remain high, with a minimum of 15°C and often reaching 48°C.