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Abstract: During the Ottoman Era (1574-1881), the city of Tunis was composed of four units: the Medina, the two suburbs and the Casbah. In this paper, we have noted that several various activities had existed around the city’s gates. It were the first meeting point between Medina’s inhabitants and the suburb’s people, and had represented a crossing place for exchanges and sociability. At the second belt of the city walls, the suburb’s gates, several activities in relation with rural cities, were concentrated. Villagers and rural people, whom came to the city for supplying or selling, had found in the peripheral area, near the city’s gates, fondouks for accommodation in which they could shelter their animals and store their goods and acquisitions. From these gates had left commercial and pilgrimage caravans. All these activities define the gates as a privileged place of mixing, meeting and crossing between people of various origins.

Keywords: Ottomans; Tunis; Gates; Suburbs; Sociability