Where Was Tatooine Filmed?

Matmata's underground houses

Matmata sits in a region of soft rock hills in southern Tunisia where the Berber population built troglodyte dwellings: a wide pit is dug straight down into the earth, forming an open central courtyard, and rooms are then tunnelled horizontally into the pit walls. The result is a house that is invisible from the surface and stays cool through the summer.

Hotel Sidi Driss is several such pits linked together and converted into guest accommodation. Lucas needed an interior that read as alien but was manifestly a real place, and the geometry of the pit house — curved earthen walls, a hole of sky overhead, doorways cut into rock — did the work without a set being built.

The production dressed the courtyard with sci-fi panelling and machinery. Some of that dressing was left behind, some was restored when the crew came back for Attack of the Clones in 2000, and a portion of it survives today for guests, though it has weathered a quarter of a century of desert and tourism.

The domed exterior is somewhere else entirely

The white domed entrance of the Lars homestead — the igloo-like structure Luke walks out of — is not in Matmata. It was built on the edge of Chott el Djerid, a vast salt lake in central Tunisia near Nefta, roughly 200 kilometres away.

That structure was a shell built for the film, and it still stands. It has been restored more than once by fan-funded efforts, most notably a project around 2012 that saved it from being buried by an advancing sand dune. It is out on the flats, unsigned, and reaching it usually requires a local driver.

Other Tunisian sites appear across the saga: Ksar Ouled Soltane, a spectacular multi-storey fortified granary near Tataouine, became the slave quarters in The Phantom Menace; Ksar Hadada was Mos Espa's streets in the same film; and the Mos Espa set itself was built in the desert near Tozeur and, like the homestead, was left standing.

Tunisia, Death Valley and a Guatemalan pyramid

For A New Hope specifically, the Tunisian shoot covered Tatooine's exteriors and the homestead. Other planets came from elsewhere: the rebel base on Yavin 4 is Tikal in Guatemala, using the Mayan temples rising above the jungle canopy, and the Death Star interiors were built at Elstree Studios in England.

Lucas has spoken often about how difficult the Tunisian shoot was — an unseasonal rainstorm, the first in years, hit the desert location, and the malfunctioning droids and generally chaotic first weeks nearly derailed the production. The footage that came out of it defined the look of the entire franchise.

Visiting the location

Where

Hotel Sidi Driss, Matmata, Gabès Governorate, southern Tunisia. The Lars homestead dome is near Chott el Djerid, outside Nefta.

Getting there

Matmata is about an hour inland from Gabès by road, and commonly visited on tours from Djerba or Douz. The Chott el Djerid dome requires a 4x4 or a local driver from Nefta or Tozeur.

Access

Hotel Sidi Driss is an operating budget hotel; day visitors are generally admitted to the film courtyard for a small charge. The desert sets are unfenced, unstaffed and free.

• Set expectations: Sidi Driss is a very basic hotel, not a preserved set. The appeal is that it is the real room.
• Avoid high summer. Southern Tunisia in July and August is brutal and there is no shade on the salt flats.
• Hire a local guide for the Chott el Djerid dome and the Mos Espa set — neither is signposted and both are easy to miss.
• Ksar Ouled Soltane near Tataouine is worth the trip regardless of the films; it is a working piece of Berber architecture.

Frequently asked questions