Tunis Village

Tunis is a small rural village in Fayoum Governorate, south-west of Cairo. It stands on a rise overlooking the western end of Lake Qarun and belongs to the Youssef El Seddik district.

Tunis remained an ordinary farming village until the second half of the twentieth century, when the Swiss potter Evelyne Porret settled there. She built a house and a studio and later founded a school to teach pottery to the village children. A number of villagers trained at the school went on to open their own workshops, and pottery became the craft for which Tunis is known. The village also attracted Egyptian writers and artists, who built houses there in a rural style using domes and mud.

Visitors walk between the pottery workshops and showrooms, where potters can be seen shaping vessels and decorating them with designs drawn from rural life. The village has an art centre that includes a caricature museum, as well as several guesthouses and eco-lodges. An annual festival of pottery and handicrafts is held there. Tunis is regarded as an example of rural development based on craft and tourism.