Tunis
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Tunis. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city and capital of the protectorate of the same name; situated at the head of a salt lake, nowhere more than 6 feet deep, which communicates by a narrow channel with the Gulf of Tunis, an inlet 30 miles long. At the outlet of the lake is Goletta, the port of Tunis, whose harbor is a roadstead with good anchorage, and is sheltered from the N. Goletta is connected by railway with Tunis, which is a walled, fortified, and straggling city, whose winding streets are now paved. The whole town has been built of materials taken from the ruins of Carthage, 13 miles N. E. The bazaars of Tunis are good, and some of the mosques are splendid edifices, but Europeans are jealously excluded from them. The Bey's palace is a modern building in the Saracenic style of architecture, internally decorated with great magnificence, but with little taste. The city has many schools and colleges, French and Jewish, and in the Great Mosque is also a Mohammedan college. Tunis has important manufactures of woolen, linen, and silk goods (which are exported to all the Mohammedan countries bordering on the Mediterranean), morocco leather, olive oil, soap, and perfumes. A canal opened in 1893 renders Tunis directly accessible to ocean-going vessels. Pop. about 200,000.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
one of the Barbary states. It lies on the Mediterranean, northeast of Algeria. It belongs nominally to Turkey, but is under French "protection." The government is administered by French officers. Southern Tunis lies below sea level and contains tracts of salt marsh. Northern Tunis is mountainous, with many fertile valleys. The upper reaches are covered with oak. The valleys shelter 200,000 cattle, 20,000 horses, 150,000 camels, 700,000 sheep, and 500,000 goats. Agriculture is the leading occupation. The chief exports are esparto grass, hides, tallow, ores, dates, olives, sponges, dyes, almonds, oranges, and cork, in all, about $20,000,000 a year. The natives are skillful in weaving woolens and carpets, in embroidering leather, and in making saddles and slippers. The fisheries, including sardines, anchovies, tunny, and other fish, are worth $500,000 a year. Area, 51,000 square miles. Population, 1,900,000, largely Arabs and including 60,000 Jews. The ordinary expenditure for public purposes is $12,000,000 a year. Tunis, the capital, has a population of 170,000, inclusive of 40,000 Europeans. See Algeria
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote in 1910 that Tunis "belongs nominally to Turkey, but is under French 'protection'," and Collier's in 1921 described the Bey's palace and a city of about 200,000, the protectorate had 35 years to run. Tunisia became independent on 20 March 1956; the monarchy was abolished the following year and Habib Bourguiba became president, ruling until 1987, when Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali took over. Ben Ali was driven out in January 2011 by the uprising that began the Arab Spring. The country now holds roughly 12 million people rather than 1.9 million, greater Tunis some two million or more, and the Jewish community Aiton's put at 60,000 has dwindled to a remnant of a few thousand, concentrated on Djerba. The old walled medina Collier's described, built of stone robbed from Carthage, survives and was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
Written for this edition, 2026.