Le Kef, is situated close to the Jabal Dyr of western Tunisia near the Algerian border. It was a site of Neolithic and Numidian settlements, and after the First Punic War it fell to Carthage after which it was named Sicca. The Romans acquired the town and named it Sicca Veneria in honor of Venus. The Vandals captured it, and in 688, the Muslim armies which conquered Ifrīqiya took over the town and slowly rebuilt it. The town's main water supply in its early history was a Roman spring now known as Rās al-ʻAyn. Cisterns still exist in the at the northern end of the town.The town became known as El Kef (the rock) after the Ottomans arrived in the 16th century and it was the first place which the French occupied in 1881. During World War II, El Kef served as the seat for the Protectorate authorities and in 1942 it served as the headquarters of liberated Tunisia.
