Sousse or Soussa (Tunisian Arabic: ????? About this sound Susa, Berber: Susa) is a city in Tunisia, capital of the Sousse Governorate. Located 140 kilometres (87 miles) south of the capital Tunis, the city has 271,428 inhabitants (2014). Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf of Hammamet, which is a part of the Mediterranean Sea. The name may be of Berber origin: similar names are found in Libya and in the south of Morocco (Bilad al-Sus). Its economy is based on transport equipment, processed food, olive oil, textiles and tourism. It is home to the Universit de Sousse.Contents 1 History1.1 Roman and Vandal eras1.2 Arab conquest1.3 European pushback1.4 Today1.5 Historical names2 Archaeology2.1 Roman circus3 Economy3.1 Tourism4 Sights5 Statistics6 Climate7 Notable people8 In films9 International relations9.1 Twin towns Sister cities10 See also11 References12 External linksHistoryA mosaic depicting Medusa in the Museum of Sousse.The Ribat of SousseSousse town centreThe Phoenicians founded Hadrumetum in the 11th century BC.Roman and Vandal erasThe city allied itself with Rome during the Punic Wars, thereby escaping damage or ruin and entered a relatively peaceful 700-year period under the Pax Romana. Livy wrote that Hadrumetum was the landing place of the Roman army under Scipio Africanus in the second Punic War. Roman usurper Clodius Albinus was born in Hadrumetum.As part of Bonifacius's revolt against Constantinople, the Vandals were invited in and they took Hadrumetum in 434 AD and renamed the town Hunerikopolis. During the Vandalic War Justinian retook the town in 534 and restored its Roman name.Arab conquestIn the 7th century AD Arab-Islamic armies conquered what is now Tunisia and rapidly spread Arab culture across what had been a thoroughly Romanized and Christianized landscape. The Arabs seized the city, which in the aftermath of Rome's fall was but a remnant of its former self.[1] They renamed the city Ssa and within a few decades elevated it to the status of the main seaport of the Aghlabid Dynasty. When the Aghlabids invaded Sicily in 827, Ssa was their main staging ground.European pushbackIn the centuries that followed, as Europe gained technological ascendancy and began pushing back at Islam, Ssa was briefly occupied by the Normans in the 12th century, was later more thoroughly occupied by the Spanish, and in the 18th century was the target of bombardments by the Venetians and the French. The French called the city Sousse.TodayDespite the turmoil around it, Sousse's character had retained the solidly Arabian look and feel it had assumed in the centuries after Islam's wars of conquest. Today it is considered one of the best examples of seaward-facing fortifications built by the Arabs. Its ribat, a soaring structure that combined the purposes of a minaret and a watch tower, is in outstanding condition and draws visitors from around the world.Sousse was the site of Chess interzonal in 1967 which was made famous when American Grandmaster Bobby Fischer withdrew from the tournament even though he was in first place at the time.[2]These days, Sousse, with a population of about 200,000, retains a medieval heart of narrow, twisted streets, a kasbah and medina, its ribat fortress and long wall on the Mediterranean. Surrounding it is a modern city of long, straight roads and more widely spaced buildings.Historical namesThrough history Sousse has come under the rule of 5 major cultures. Each of those cultures gave a new or modified name to the town. Each of those names may appear in various forms. From oldest to newest some of these names and forms of spelling/transliteration are:Hadrumetum[3] OR Hadrumete[1] (Punic)Colonia Concordia Ulpia Trajana Augusta Frugifera Hadrumetina OR Hadrumetum[1] OR Hadrumentum (Roman)Hunericopolis[1] OR Hunerikopolis (Vandal)Justiniana[1] OR Justinianopolis[1] OR Iustinianopolis[3] (Byzantine)Susa (Berber), Susa (Arabic), Sousa OR Sousse (French)As the following reference shows, the above list represents only a fraction of the spellings and transliterations of the names for Sousse which were known in 1903[4] (PDF page 366).ArchaeologyAccording to an ICOMOS report[1] from 1987, the siege and capture of Sousse at the end of the 7th century, by Oqba Ibn Nafi, resulted in the total destruction of the city that incorporated the heritage of the previous thousand years of Punic, Roman and Byzantine history. The report states that no monument from this period "subsists in situ".The official Tunisian body for matters of heritage and archaeology is the Institut National du Patrimoine Tunisie / National Heritage Institute (INP).[5] That body maintains a project known as the Carte Nationale des Sites Archologiques et des Monuments Historiques.[6] Although it is to be expected that a city as important as Sousse would be covered by such a project, that is not in fact the case. The project divides the country up into rectangles according to the 1:50000 mapping sheets.[7] On that basis the town of Sousse falls on the 1:50000 sheet: 'Sousse 57' and, as such, should be covered in the project by a similarly numbered web page and PDF document. However, neither this web page nor the document exist because they, like those for a number of other sheets, have not yet been produced. The web page and document for the neighbouring sheet 50 (variously referred to as '050 Halk el Mejjel', 'HALK EL MEJEL 050', and 'Halk el Mennzel 50'), give an idea of what the Sousse data would look like: web page and PDF document.Further historical and archaeological documents on Sousse are available at the Italian site DOCARTIS: decrees[8] ([9][10][11][12]); aerial photograph;[13] map.[14]Roman circusA PDF file[4] (in French), available from the site of the Institut National du Patrimoine Tunisie / National Heritage Institute (INP), containing over 400 pages from various reports and papers produced by the SOCIT ARCHOLOGIQUE DE SOUSSE around 1903, contains some 10 references to the word cirque in the context of Sousse. This document makes absolutely clear that in 1903 the Roman circus of Sousse was considered the only public monument of Sousse whose location was known[4] (PDF page 204).From the discussion in this file, and from an aerial photograph[13] it would appear certain that the Roman circus of Sousse was located, with a north-south orientation, about 1 km (0.6 mi) north-west of the walls of the medina at a location[15] which, today, is partially occupied by a sports ground.