Star Wars's real Tatooine — Berber ksour, underground troglodyte homes, and the Saharan edge of Tunisia
Tataouine is the capital of Tunisia's southernmost governorate — a desert town whose surrounding landscape George Lucas scouted in 1976 and used as the visual basis for Tatooine. The area contains ksar (fortified Berber granary towers): Ksar Ouled Soltane (30km southeast), with its triple-storey courtyard of vaulted ghorfas, is the best-preserved in Tunisia. The troglodyte villages of Beni Barka and Ksar Hadada — partly still inhabited, partly film sets — sit within easy day-trip range.
The Tataouine region has been Berber territory since ancient times — the indigenous Amazigh people built the ksour between the 12th and 19th centuries as fortified communal granaries and refuges against nomadic raiding. The French established the present administrative town as a garrison post in the 1880s. George Lucas filmed portions of the original Star Wars across this region in 1976, naming the desert planet directly from Tataouine — making the town the most influential film location most people have never heard of.