Star Wars: Tatooine in Tunisia

The saga opens with two robots falling out of the sky: C-3PO and R2-D2 jettison in an escape pod from the captured spaceship Tantive IV and land on the surface of Tatooine. Lucas filmed the landing site in sand dunes at La Grande Dune, near Nefta, after selecting Tunisia to provide the desert planet setting. Filming in Tunisia began on March 22, 1976. Stand in the dunes and the shot still reads: a flat horizon, rippled sand, and two droids who have lost their way.

Location precision: The landing site lies in the sand dunes at La Grande Dune, near Nefta; the pin marks Nefta.

The droids lose their way in a sparse desert and are captured by small scavenger creatures called Jawas. Lucas staged that menace in a real gorge: footage filmed at Sidi Bouhlel in Tunisia was combined with 1977 second-unit filming at Death Valley National Park in California to create the rocky canyon scenes featuring Jawas and Tusken Raiders. The steep walls do half the acting, closing in around the two lost droids until the ambush feels inevitable.

Location precision: The exact stretch of canyon is unknown; the pin marks Sidi Bouhlel.

The cameras for the Lars homestead and moisture farm stood somewhere out on this white expanse: combined with shots at Chott el Djerid, near Nefta, the Matmata interiors formed the setting where protagonist Luke Skywalker is introduced as a young man living with his aunt and uncle on a farm. Shots of the binary sunset over the Tatooine desert are considered to be an iconic image of the film series. The real Chott el Djerid is the largest salt pan of the Sahara Desert, with a surface area of over 7,000 square kilometres.

Location precision: The homestead exterior was filmed somewhere on the salt flat; the pin marks Chott el Djerid.

The Hotel Sidi Idriss in Matmata is Luke Skywalker's childhood home. The hotel was used in 1976 as a filming location in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which it was featured as the home of Luke Skywalker, his Aunt Beru Lars and Uncle Owen Lars on the planet Tatooine. The location needed no set dressing: the Matmata hotel consisted of a troglodyte dwelling in a large hole in the ground. It was featured again in the 2002 prequel film Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

Every drifter in the saga seems to pass through Mos Eisley, and its street scenes were shot on Djerba: exterior shots of the Mos Eisley spaceport were shot on the island, and the city of Ajim and its surrounding areas were used as filming locations for Star Wars. One of the most celebrated scenes in the Star Wars saga is in the Mos Eisley cantina, a shady saloon populated by exotic alien species, where various leading characters are introduced to the story: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Location precision: The Mos Eisley exteriors were shot around Ajim on Djerba; the pin marks the town.

Visitor guidance: Original-movie buildings around Ajim, including Obi-Wan Kenobi's house and the Mos Eisley cantina, can still be visited.

When crews returned to Tunisia to film for the Star Wars prequel films in 1998, locations at Onk Jemal (Ong Jmal) in Tozeur were used for Tatooine scenes, and the great Mos Espa set still stands in the sand there. Mos Espa is home to the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace track, where Anakin competes in pod races, long-distance airborne races across the desert. Abandoned sets for the filming have been left in the desert but can be visited.

Visitor guidance: The abandoned Mos Espa set stands in the desert near Tozeur and can be visited; bring sun protection and water.

The stacked granary cells of Ksar Ouled Soltane became the slave quarters of Mos Espa, where the character Anakin Skywalker lived as a boy: the ksar was featured in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in scenes used to represent those quarters. Anakin Skywalker spent his childhood in the city, along with his mother Shmi, both slaves under the ownership of Watto. The real building is a fortified granary in the Tataouine district in southern Tunisia, spread over two courtyards ringed by multi-story vaulted granary cellars, or ghorfas.

A year before the main prequel shoot, George Lucas came to Ksar Hadada: in June 1997 he used the area to shoot on-location scenes for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) to represent Mos Espa on the planet Tatooine, the birthplace of Anakin Skywalker. The village is well known as a filming location for the 1999 film. You can sleep inside the set itself: part of the ksar has been turned into a hotel where tourists can stay.

Visitor guidance: Part of the ksar has been turned into a hotel where tourists can stay; book ahead in high season.