Tunisia may be the smallest country in North Africa, but its strategic position has ensured it an eventful history. The Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Ottomans and French have all picked at the region at one point. The earliest humans to set foot here were probably a group of

The Phoenicians first set up shop in Tunisia at Utica in 1100 BC, using it as a staging post along the route from their home port of Tyre (in modern-day Lebanon) to Spain. They went on to establish a chain of ports along the North African coast, the most important of which included Hadrumètum (Sousse) and Hippo Diarrhytus (Bizerte). But the port that looms largest in history books is Carthage, arch enemy of Rome. It became the leader of the western Phoenician world in the 7th century and the main power in the Western Mediterranean in the early 5th century. The city's regional dominance lasted until the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, which began in 263 BC and ended in 146 BC with Carthage utterly razed and its people sold into slavery.

The Tunisian territory became Roman property after the war. The emperor Augustus refounded Carthage as a Roman city in 44 BC, naming it the capital of Africa Proconsularis, Rome's African holdings. Agriculture became all-important, and by the 1st century AD, the wheat-growing plains of Tunisia were supplying over 60% of the empire's requirements. The Romans went on to found cities and colonies across Tunisia's plains and coastline; today, they're Tunisia's principal tourist attractions.

By the beginning of the 5th century, with Rome's power in terminal decline, the Vandals decided the area was ripe for plucking. Within 10 years, they'd taken Carthage as their capital and began to, well, vandalise. Their exploitative policies alienated them from the native Berber population, who in turn formed small kingdoms and began raiding the Vandal settlements. The Byzantines of Constantinople, who pulled the territory from the Vandals in 533 and kept it for the next 150 years, fared no better.

Islam burst onto the scene in the 7th century, when the Arab armies swept out of Arabia, quickly conquering Egypt. The Arabs had taken all of North Africa by the start of the 8th century, and, with Kairouan as its capital, the region became a province of the fast-expanding Islamic empire controlled by the caliphs of Damascus.

The Berbers adopted Islamic religious teachings readily enough, but they riled under their harsh treatment by the Arabs. Their uprisings continued until 909, when a group of Berber Shiites, the Fatimids, glommed together disaffected Berber tribes and took North Africa back from the Arabs. Their capital was raised on the coast at Mahdia, but the unity was to be short-lived. When some of the tribes returned to the Sunni mainstream, the tribes began to fight one another and North Africa was slowly reduced to ruins.

Conflicts arose again when North Africa was caught in the middle of the rivalry between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the middle of the 16th century. Tunis changed hands half a dozen times in some 50 years, before the Turks took it in 1574 and it became an Ottoman territory. Ottoman power lasted through to the 19th century, when France became the new power in the Western Mediterranean and Tunis came under increasing pressure to conform to their European ways.

In 1881, the French sent 30,000 troops into Tunisia under the pretext of countering border raids into French-occupied Algeria. They quickly occupied Tunis and forced the ruling

Tunisia was formally granted independence on 20 March 1956, with Bourguiba as prime minister. The following year, the country was declared a republic and Bourguiba became its first president, instituting sweeping political and social changes. Regarding Islam as a force that was holding the country back, Bourguiba set about reducing its role in society by removing religious leaders from their traditional areas of influence, such as education and the law. The

Bourguiba's presidency lasted through 1987, when after years of working to squelch the Islamic-party pretenders to his throne, his own minister for the interior, Zine el-Abidine ben Ali, took advantage of the Islamic citizenry's unrest to have Bourguiba declared mentally unfit to rule and 'retired' to a palace outside Monastir.

Ben Ali quickly moved to appease the Islamic opposition, making a pilgrimage to Mecca and ordering that the Ramadan fast be observed. Since taking power his party's stranglehold on the government has held fast. Today the main opposition parties remain disenfranchised and media censorship is commonplace. In elections held in October 1999, Ben Ali won by a whopping 99.44% - a figure widely believed to be fabricated. Bourguiba's death in April 2000 inspired widespread and open dissent against Ben Ali's regime, and signs of unrest are becoming more and more prominent.

The Berbers were the original inhabitants of Tunisia, but waves of immigration over the centuries have brought Phoenicians, Jews, Romans, Vandals and Arabs. There was a major influx of Spanish Muslims in the 17th century, and the Ottoman Turks have also added their bit to the great ethnic mix.

Islam is the state religion. Although while there has been a definite resurgence of religious adherence, particularly among the young and unemployed, the country remains fairly liberal. A small Jewish community practices in Tunis and on the island of Jerba, and there are also about 20,000 Roman Catholics.

Thanks largely to the efforts of the secular, socialist former president, Habib Bourguiba, conditions for women in Tunisia are better than just about anywhere in the Islamic world - to western eyes, at least. Bourguiba outlawed polygamy and divorce by renunciation, and also placed limits on the tradition of arranging marriages, setting a minimum marriage age of 17 for girls and giving them the right to refuse a proposed marriage. His calling the veil 'an odious rag' led to its present state of scarcity.

Still, ancient traditions die hard, and women travellers are well advised to keep their upper arms and shoulders covered and to opt for long skirts or trousers. Men wearing shorts are considered to be in their underwear and can sometimes incite indignation as well. Public displays of affection are frowned upon in most parts of the country.

Today, the country is virtually bilingual: Arabic is the language of government, but almost everyone speaks some French. French was the language of education in the early Bourguiba years and is still taught in schools from the age of six. English and German are also taught in schools, but it's rare to encounter either language outside the main tourist areas. The Berber language Chelha is heard only in isolated villages.

Hammams (public bathhouses) are one of life's focal points in Tunisia, as they are all across North Africa and the Middle East, and are seen as a place not just to clean up, but to unwind and socialise. Every town has at least one hammam, with separate areas for men and women - sometimes in separate buildings altogether. Men needn't bring anything with them - a fouta (cotton towel) is provided to wear around the hammam - though women are expected to bring their own towel (and to wear underpants while washing, so bring a dry pair to change into afterwards). The standard fee includes access to the bath and steam room and a kassa, a brisk rubdown with a coarse mitten.

The arts in Tunisia have been greatly influenced by the country's mix of cultures. Architectural styles, for instance, range from Punic and Roman ruins to the red-tiled 'Alpine' houses of 'Ain Draham, the Islamic architecture of the Arab medinas and the troglodytic Berber structures of the south.

Malouf, which means 'normal,' is the name given to a form of traditional Arab-style music that's become a sort of national institution in Tunisia. Among the principal styles of classical Tunisian music are nouba (the oldest, of Andalusian origin), chghoul and bachraf (of Turkish origin). The country's best known musicians, singers and composers include the El-Azifet ensemble (a rarity in this part of the world, it's an all-female group), Khemais Tarnane, Raoul Journou, Saliha, Saleh Mehdi, Ali Riahi, Hedi Jouini and Fethia Khairi, though you probably won't have much luck finding them outside of the country.