File:Park al touta in ghadames city.jpg

English: the old city of Ghadames is the oldest habitable medina in the entire Sahara, with evidence going back to the Paleolithic period. The oasis attained a high status in historical records from being one of the busiest caravan trade centres in the Libyan Sahara, with caravan routes connecting it with Fezzan and Sub-Saharan Africa, Algeria, Tunisia and the northern parts of Libya. One of the main features of the old town is the fact that it is built entirely out of mud and is completely covered, except for small ventilation holes found occasionally along its dark lanes and labyrinthine passages and streets. This ancient design has a good reason to be invented in the Sahara: the mud houses maintain a cool town in the summer and warm habitat in the freezing winter nights. In addition to protection from the scorching heat of the desert sun, the roof of the city acts like another city with complete open streets and lanes, exclusively used by women, to move from one house to another and from one area to the other. Hence, it does not come as a surprise that Ghadames has been declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.