Matmata is a Berber troglodyte settlement in the Dahar plateau of southern Tunisia, some forty kilometres inland from the coastal city of Gabès. The traditional dwellings are excavated downwards into the soft yellow limestone of the plateau: a circular sunken courtyard open to the sky is surrounded by rooms cut horizontally into the surrounding rock, with a single sloped tunnel providing surface access.
The form is a long-standing southern Tunisian Berber response to the climate of the pre-Saharan plateau, where summer surface temperatures regularly exceed forty degrees while subterranean rooms remain cool, and where building stone is scarce. Comparable troglodyte villages exist at Tamezret, Toujane, Haddej, Beni Aïssa, and several other sites in the Dahar.
Matmata gained international visibility through its appearance as Luke Skywalker's homestead in Star Wars (1977), filmed at the Hôtel Sidi Driss; subsequent installments of the franchise returned to the site. Tourism has brought both restoration funds and the conversion of dwellings into hotels and museums.
The traditional Berber language of the southern Dahar — close to the Nafusi spoken in adjacent western Libya — survives in elderly populations of Tamezret, Chenini, Douiret, and Sened, with younger generations almost universally Arabic-monolingual. The Tunisian state has not formally recognised Tamazight; revival efforts are largely community-led.