Douar

A small rural settlement, originally referring to a circular tent encampment of a single lineage and by extension to the permanent earthen hamlets that grew on those sites in southern Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania. In administrative usage the douar is the smallest official rural settlement unit; in vernacular usage it carries the additional connotation of kin-based co-residence under a single amghar or jma'a. Many of the smaller atlas sites in this archive are formally douars rather than ksour, the distinction being principally one of size and the presence or absence of a fortified perimeter.