Rabat

Rabat is the capital city of Morocco. Morocco is a country in the north of Africa.

Another city, Salé, sits right across the river.

Rabat is the capital of Morocco. It lies on the Atlantic coast, on the left bank of the Bou Regreg river where it flows into the ocean, the encyclopedia Universalis explains. Its twin city, Salé, faces it across the river.

Morocco's 2024 census counted 515,619 people in Rabat and 945,101 in Salé. Universalis says the two cities together, joined by a bridge, had about 1.7 million people in 2008.

Universalis describes Rabat as already an 'imperial city' when it was chosen as capital in 1912, at the start of the French protectorate, in preference to Fès, a role it kept after independence. It sits on the left bank at the mouth of the Bou Regreg and forms, with Salé opposite, a conurbation of 1.7 million (2008).

City Population, from Morocco's High Commission for Planning, gives 515,619 people in Rabat (including Touarga) at the census of 1 September 2024, down from 577,827 in 2014; Salé counted 945,101.

An old fort called the Kasbah of the Udayas stands above the river. White houses stand inside its walls.

Nearby is a huge tower that was never finished.

The Kasbah of the Udayas began as a citadel built in the middle of the 1100s by Abd al-Mumin, the first Almohad sultan, Universalis says. Its walls stand above the mouth of the Bou Regreg, and Morocco's tourism office praises the gardens around it.

A later sultan, Yaqub al-Mansur, started an enormous mosque with a great tower. Work began in 1184, UNESCO says, but the tower, now called the Hassan Tower, was never finished. At the Chellah, visitors walk among ancient ruins, gardens and storks.

Universalis credits Abd al-Mumin with turning a ribat, a fortified post, into a military citadel, today's Kasbah of the Udayas; Yaqub al-Mansur named the town Ribat al-Fath, built long ramparts and began a vast mosque whose great tower, the Hassan Tower, stayed unfinished. UNESCO dates the Hassan Mosque to 1184 and calls it and the Almohad ramparts and gates the only surviving parts of a planned great Almohad capital.

The Chellah keeps traces of Roman Sala Colonia; Universalis notes that it was laid out by the Merinids in the 14th century, and Morocco's tourism office describes its imposing walls, gardens and storks.

Rabat has parks and gardens, and beaches by the ocean.

In the old Chellah ruins, visitors see storks.

Morocco's tourism office calls Rabat a green capital, with parks such as the botanical test garden and, a few kilometers away, the Exotic Gardens of Bouknadel. Along the Atlantic, kilometers of beaches stretch toward Casablanca.

Music festivals fill the city too, such as Mawazine, with music from all over the world, and Jazz au Chellah.

The tourism office presents Rabat as an eco-responsible capital with green spaces (the botanical test garden; the Exotic Gardens of Bouknadel a few kilometers away), kilometers of well-equipped Atlantic beaches leading toward Casablanca, and festivals such as Mawazine and Jazz au Chellah.

UNESCO stresses the new town's public spaces and the role given to vegetation, and names the Jardins d'Essais botanical and pleasure gardens as part of the World Heritage site.