Quick Answer — Matmata is the Amazigh (Berber) village in the hills 40 km southwest of Gabès where families have lived for centuries in troglodyte homes: courtyards dug ten metres into the earth, with rooms hollowed out of the pit walls. One of them, the Hotel Sidi Driss, was Luke Skywalker’s home in Star Wars, and you can still sleep and eat there. Several homes open to visitors for a small tip; the stone hill villages of Tamezret and Toujane nearby are quieter and, for many, better. Come between October and April, take a louage from Gabès or drive, and sleep in a Tamezret guesthouse rather than in Matmata itself. Here’s the whole story.
As you climb out of the Gabès oasis and into the Dahar, the road dries, the palms thin to olives, and the land turns the colour of a lion. Then you notice the holes. Dozens of them, round and deep, punched into the hillsides like craters — and in the bottom of each, if you look down, a whitewashed doorway, a fig tree, a line of washing. Half a century ago you would have seen nothing at all from the road, because in Matmata everything was underground.
Matmata’s architecture and its Amazigh heritage make it the most visited village in southern Tunisia, and its underground homes are famous the world over thanks to a film. But the homes were here long before the cameras, and the story of why is the more interesting one.
Why a Village Went Underground
The troglodyte houses of Matmata sit in a dry, pocked landscape in the valleys of southern Tunisia’s Jebel Dahar. It is uncertain when the tribes here decided to dig rather than build, and the whole region remained largely unknown to the outside world until the 1960s, when catastrophic flooding — twenty-two days of rain in 1969 — collapsed homes and sent a delegation to Gabès to ask for help. The government’s answer was Matmata Nouvelle, the above-ground town you pass on the road in. Most families rebuilt underground anyway.
The dwellings are made by first digging a circular pit into the soft sandstone, which yields to simple hand tools. Rooms are then excavated into the walls of the pit, leaving the open centre as a courtyard. Once finished, a troglodyte house is a cool retreat from the day’s heat and a sturdy home that may last for generations — unless, of course, rains like those of the 1960s cause floods and collapse. Extreme drought can crack them too.
Abderrahman Lachheb, president of the Association for the Safeguarding of Old Matmata, told us the village “has witnessed the passage of many civilizations, which have enhanced its cultural history.” Of the roughly 1,200 dwellings that have been conserved, some are still inhabited; others have become hotels and guesthouses. “Half a century ago, visitors to Matmata would have seen nothing on the ground,” he said. “Families would assemble in the pits or yards of their homes because everything was built below.”
The engineering follows the family. “They created ten-metre-deep holes, widened the perimeter from fifteen to twenty metres, constructed an exit, and cut quarters for family members within the perimeter of the pit, since the father was the leader of the family,” Lachheb explained. Even the olive-oil press was dug into the earth.
Historians say the design tempered the temperature and shielded families from the sun; others believe the homes doubled as fortresses during raids by neighbouring tribes. Under French rule, they hid resistance fighters. “They used the mountains as their residences, and there are seventeen fortifications still standing in the highlands,” Lachheb said. “After leaving the mountains, they carved these homes into the ground.”
The village is thought to be named for a clan that took refuge in these hills during the Islamic conquest; in Amazigh it was once called Athwab, “the place of happiness and well-being.” Matmata is one of the few towns in Tunisia where the Amazigh language is still spoken — our field guide to Tunisia’s Amazigh heritage explains how rare that has become — and a Quranic school, a former synagogue, and the shrine of Sidi Moussa El Jemni, which Lachheb says holds “very valuable and rare manuscripts,” record a village where several faiths once lived side by side.
Hotel Sidi Driss and the Star Wars Question
Every Star Wars fan knows that Luke Skywalker’s home is not on Tatooine but in Tunisia — specifically in the Hotel Sidi Driss, a set of five linked troglodyte pits that George Lucas chose in 1976 for the Lars homestead, and returned to in 2000 for Attack of the Clones.
The dining-room pit still carries the props from the second shoot, and you can eat a couscous lunch under them, or take one of the plain, cheap rooms and sleep in the movie. Be honest with yourself about what it is: a basic hotel with a great story, not a resort. The wider trail of film locations, from the Lars exterior at Chott el Jerid to Ksar Ghilane, is in our guide to the Star Wars sets. The village also hosts a small Athwab cinema festival founded by residents to honour its role in film.
Visiting the Homes, Honestly
A handful of families keep their homes open to visitors, and this is the real reason to come. You climb down a sloping tunnel into a sunlit courtyard, are shown the kitchen, the bedrooms with their stone shelves, the grain store, and are offered tea and perhaps a taste of the local olive oil, which the village prizes.
The etiquette: this is someone’s house, a tip of a few dinars is expected and fair, and photographs of people need a yes first. The honest note: Matmata lives on this. The souvenir stalls and the men who wave tour buses into “their” house can make the main street feel like a show, and a coach-load arriving at once flattens the experience. Come early or late in the day, go with one family rather than three, and the village returns to itself.
Tamezret and Toujane: The Quieter Hills
If Matmata is the famous village, its neighbours are the ones travellers remember. Tamezret, ten kilometres west, is a stone village wound around a hilltop, its houses camouflaged against the rock, a tiny mosque on the summit and a good Berber museum in a family home below. It has the best guesthouses in the region — cave rooms, home cooking, silence — and makes a far better night than Matmata itself. Toujane, thirty kilometres southeast on the mountain road to Medenine, spills down a mountainside above the plain with views to the coast; it is where the region’s honey and kilims come from, and the drive to it is the finest in the Dahar. The three villages together, with Gabès as the base, make one full day or a slow two — and connect onward to the cliff village of Chenini near Tataouine, the other great Amazigh site of the south.
Practicalities
Getting there. Matmata is 40 km southwest of Gabès, about 45 minutes on a sealed road. Louages leave Gabès all day and cost a few dinars; buses run several times daily. For Tamezret and Toujane you want a car or a driver — Gabès taxis will negotiate a day rate. Douz and the Chott el Jerid are an hour and a half west; Medenine an hour southeast via Toujane. Gabès itself is on the train line from Tunis.
Sleeping. Hotel Sidi Driss for the story; a Tamezret guesthouse for the experience. Book Tamezret ahead in autumn and spring.
When to go. Autumn through spring. Summer afternoons on the surface are brutal, though the homes themselves stay cool — which is, after all, the point. Winter nights are cold underground; bring a layer.
With children. The pits, the tunnels, and the Star Wars connection make Matmata one of the best stops in the south for families — it’s in our Tunisia with kids guide.
Matmata is one of the most beloved places in southern Tunisia, whether you come for the houses, the Amazigh heritage, or the landscape. Its beauty unfolds the way its homes do: nothing on the surface, and then, once you climb down, a whole life.
From the Carthage Magazine Bookshelf
If the Dahar is on your route — Matmata, the hill villages, and the oasis below — these three carry the south with you.
- All About Tunisia — the definitive English-language traveler’s guide. 572 pages, 27 chapters, all nine regions, every UNESCO inscription, five thematic trails — and the practical answers (visa, currency, transport, etiquette) most travelers wish they’d had on the plane. $24.99 · PDF & EPUB.
- Speak Like a Local — 200+ Tunisian Arabic phrases with native audio recorded in Tunis. The phrases for the taxi, the souk, the café, and the dinner table. $14.99 · PDF, EPUB, MP3.
- The Authentic Tunisian Cookbook — sixty traditional recipes from the heart of North Africa. For when you get home and find yourself missing the food. $9.99 · PDF & EPUB.
All three available as a bundle for $39.99 — guide, language, and food, delivered together.
