Part of the country series of articles.
TRAVEL ADVISORY: EXERCISE CAUTIONPARSTATE advises travellers to exercise caution in the Maghreb Federation. Conditions vary significantly between the prosperous coastal cities and the southern desert interior, where federal authority is inconsistent and banditry remains a concern on some routes.
| Maghreb Federation | |
|---|---|
| Federal Republic | |
 |
|
| Capital | Tunis |
| Languages | Arabic, Tamazight, French, Spanish, and many regional languages |
| Population | 68,400,000 |
The Maghreb Federation is a federal union occupying the North African littoral from the northern border of Mali to the Tunisian border with Libya, extending south into the northern Sahara but stopping well short of Tamanrasset. It is a country of considerable internal variety – Andalusian-inflected cities on the Atlantic, Berber mountain communities in the Atlas ranges, Arab coastal towns, Jewish quarters of great antiquity, and a Saharan fringe that shades into territory the federal government administers distantly. French and Spanish colonial influence persists in architecture, law and the educated class, layered over older Moorish and Amazigh elements that the federation has made some effort to recover and formalise as a national culture.
Libya split from the federation roughly half a century ago under circumstances that remain a source of bitterness in Tunis. Internally, the federation is held together by a federal parliament in Tunis and a great deal of negotiation between regional governments that orbit the federal government at different distances. It has had military governments and will probably have them again, but the current civilian arrangement has lasted long enough to have acquired some institutional weight. It trades extensively with Vekllei, France and across the Mediterranean, and its cities – Tunis, Casablanca, Fez, Oran – are among the most culturally vivid in the world.