The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as " Grand Tunis ", has about 2,, inhabitants. As of [update] , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region after Casablanca and Algiers and the eleventh-largest in the Arab world. At its core lies the Medina , a World Heritage Site.
As the capital of the country, Tunis is the focus of Tunisian political and administrative life and also the center of the country's commercial and cultural activities. Different explanations exist for the origin of the name Tunis.
Some scholars relate it to the Carthaginian goddess Tanith 'Tanit or Tanut , as many ancient cities were named after patron deities. Another possibility is that it was derived from the Berber verbal root ens which means "to lie down" or "to pass the night". As all of these Berber villages were situated on Roman roads, they undoubtedly served as rest-stations or stops. The historical study of Carthage is problematic. Because its culture and records were destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War , very few Carthaginian primary historical sources survive.
While there are a few ancient translations of Punic texts into Greek and Latin , as well as inscriptions on monuments and buildings discovered in Northwest Africa , [ 8 ] the main sources are Greek and Roman historians, including Livy , Polybius , Appian , Cornelius Nepos , Silius Italicus , Plutarch , Dio Cassius , and Herodotus.
These writers belonged to peoples in competition, and often in conflict, with Carthage. It was one of the first towns in the region to fall under Carthaginian control, and in the centuries that followed the settlement was mentioned in the military histories associated with Carthage. Thus, during Agathocles' expedition, which landed at Cape Bon in BC, the town changed hands on various occasions.
