Urban resilience of the historical bazaar area in medina of Tunis

The concept of urban resilience is generally defined in the literature as the ability of a system to maintain its functions and structure in the face of internal and external changes, and the ability to adapt existing resources and skills to new situations and working conditions. How cities resisted against all the destructive and transformative effects that they encountered throughout their history has been the subject of many studies. The historical bazaar area, located in the Medina of Tunis city, still continues its existence and function today despite the social, economic and cultural change processes that it has encountered throughout its history. Wars, crises, pandemics and all other man-made and natural disasters faced by the Medina have been decisive in the development and transformation of the historical bazaar area. However, despite all these processes, the Bazaar region has continued to preserve its spatial integrity and morphological structure throughout the ages since the 7th century when it was founded. Here the question arises about how this city managed to keep its urban spatial and how it achieved the resilience and its self-organization? What are the main features behind it? The aim of this study is to discuss the reasons behind the resilience of the bazaar area in Tunis Medina. In order to make this discussion, the concept of urban resilience has been investigated within the scope of the study. Basic indicators accepted in the literature regarding this concept are presented. Among these indicators, diversity, connectivity, modularity, redundancy and adaptability were chosen to investigate the strength of the market area in Tunis city.