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Ben Arous

Tunisian town

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 29, 2025
Entity authorityQ816443
Source-derived summary

Ben Arous (Tunisian Arabic: بن عروس ) is a city in north-eastern Tunisia, part the agglomeration of Tunis, also called Grand Tunis. It is located south of Tunis city center and is the capital of the Ben Arous Governorate.

Information about Ben Arous

East Ben Arous is on the Sidi Fathallah Plain, and is named after Muslim saint Sidi Ben Arous who died in 1444. It is known in legend as a site for curing female infertility. A farm was laid out on the plain where Sousse Road is planned to be built. The Sidi Fathallah Plain is the site where the battle of Ad Decimum was fought. This battle was the beginning of the end of the domination by the Byzantine Army General Belisarius, on September 13, 523 AD.

As Tunisia was a French protectorate from (1881–1956), during this time North Ben Arous was renamed Fochville and was the home of many employees of the Tunisian Railway Firm Company, whose stores were on what is now the Sidi Fathallah Plain. However, south Ben Arous was mainly inhabited by businessmen from Tunis who were French merchants and immigrants. Northeast Ben Arous was well known for its agriculture, and was famous for wines, grapes, vegetables, fruit and other produce.

Today Ben Arous is primarily an industrial zone with food and railway factories.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ben Arous” as tunisian town. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Arous, Tunisian and town.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1444, 1881, 1956—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Arous, Tunisian and town providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ben Arous”, the useful work is to connect “tunisian town” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q816443. Authority coordinates are 36.753, 10.219. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1444, 1881 and 1956.

Critical limits

Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ben Arous”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ben Arous primary sources, Ben Arous archive and Arous research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ben Arous”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ben Arous” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.