Morocco

Morocco is a country in North Africa.

It has the ocean on one side and a sea on another. Big mountains cross the middle. Some tops are white with snow. The capital city is Rabat.

Morocco is in the northwest corner of Africa. It has two coasts: one on the Atlantic Ocean and one on the Mediterranean Sea. Spain is just across the Strait of Gibraltar.

Most of Morocco is high land. The Rif Mountains rise in the north and the Atlas Mountains cross the center, and beyond them lies the edge of the Sahara. Morocco's 2024 census counted about 36.8 million people. Casablanca is the largest city, and Rabat, on the Atlantic coast, is the capital.

Morocco lies in western North Africa; Britannica calls it the only African country with coastal exposure to both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the country stands high, averaging about 800 m above sea level. The Rif and Atlas ranges, formed by the folding and uplift of sediments laid down in the Tethys Sea between about 65 and 2.6 million years ago, separate Atlantic Morocco from the east and the Sahara.

The High Commission for Planning (HCP) set the legal population at 36,828,330 on September 1, 2024, including 148,152 foreign residents; 62.8 percent lived in towns and cities. The census covers the parts of Western Sahara that Morocco administers, within its Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra and Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab regions. Casablanca is the largest city and major Atlantic port, Rabat is the capital, and Morocco is the only monarchy in North Africa.

Casablanca is the biggest city. Rabat is the capital.

Fez is a very old city with a walled old town. Marrakesh has red walls and big gates. In the south, there are old towns built of earth.

Casablanca is Morocco's largest city and a major port. Under French rule it grew from a small coastal village into a huge city, and Rabat became the capital. Fez, founded in the 800s, has a medina, an old walled town, full of madrasas (schools), palaces, fountains and mosques. Marrakesh was founded around 1070 and has walls, monumental gates and the great square of Jemaa el-Fna.

In the south, people built fortified villages called ksour, with earthen houses crowded inside high walls. Aït-Ben-Haddou is a famous example.

Casablanca, Morocco's largest city and major Atlantic port, was transformed under the protectorate from a small coastal village into a bustling metropolis, and Rabat became the capital and center of administration (Britannica). The French built villes nouvelles beside the medinas instead of rebuilding them. UNESCO lists Rabat (2012) for its 1912-1930s new town and its 12th-century Almohad ramparts and the Hassan Mosque, begun in 1184.

Fez, founded in the 9th century, reached its height under the Marinids in the 13th and 14th centuries, when it replaced Marrakesh as capital; its medina's madrasas, fondouks, palaces and fountains date from then (World Heritage, 1981). Marrakesh, founded in 1070-72 by the Almoravids, kept its walls, gates, gardens and the Koutoubiya Mosque, and Jemaa el-Fna, which UNESCO calls a veritable open-air theater (1985). Aït-Ben-Haddou (1987), in Ouarzazate province, is a ksar, earthen buildings within high walls reinforced by corner towers.

Morocco has tall mountains.

The Atlas Mountains get snow in winter. Mount Toubkal is the tallest one. Rivers run down from the mountains to the ocean. East and south of the mountains, the land is dry desert.

The Atlas Mountains are really three chains: the High Atlas, the Middle Atlas and the Anti-Atlas. The High Atlas is 740 kilometers long, and its peak, Mount Toubkal, is Morocco's highest point at 4,165 meters. Snow is common above about 2,000 meters and can last on the highest peaks until late spring or early summer.

The mountains catch rain and snow from Atlantic storms, and Morocco has the biggest network of streams in North Africa. The Sebou carries the most water. East of the mountains, in their rain shadow, the land turns to desert, and the Sahara begins in the south.

The Rif, geologically part of the cordilleras reaching south from Iberia, rises to 2,456 m at Mount Tidirhine. The Atlas comprises three chains: the High Atlas, 740 km long, reaching 4,165 m at Mount Toubkal (Britannica); the Middle Atlas, cresting at 3,340 m; and the Anti-Atlas, running southwest to the Atlantic. Eastern Morocco holds the Moulouya basin and the High Plateaus at 1,200-1,300 m, and south and southeast of the Atlas lies the northwestern edge of the Sahara.

Windward slopes capture Atlantic storms, giving Morocco the most extensive stream network in North Africa. The Sebou, about 450 km, has the largest volume and, with its tributaries, almost half the country's surface water; the Drâa, about 1,100 km, is the longest, though all but its upper course is usually dry. Rain falls from October to April, from about 800 mm on the Gharb plain to under 200 mm in the Sous valley; the central Rif gets more than 2,030 mm. The cold Canary Current and offshore high pressure reduce rainfall, and in late spring or summer the sharqī, a hot, dusty Saharan wind, can push temperatures to 41 °C.

Morocco's 2024 census counted about 36.8 million people.

Most people speak Moroccan Arabic, called Darija. Many also speak an Amazigh language. Couscous is made from tiny grains rolled by hand and steamed.

Morocco's people are mostly Arabs and Imazighen, also called Berbers, or a mix of both. Arabic and Tamazight are both official languages. In the 2024 census, about nine in ten people said they use Moroccan Arabic, called Darija, and about one in four use an Amazigh language, such as Tachelhit, Tamazight or Tarifit. French is an important second language. Most Moroccans are Muslim.

Three-fourths of the people live on the coastal plains and plateaus. In the Rif and Atlas mountains, many villages perch on hillsides, with fields on terraces. Couscous, made from semolina rolled by hand and steamed, is a tradition Morocco shares with Algeria, Mauritania and Tunisia.

Britannica describes the population as mainly Arabs and Imazighen or a mix of the two, with descendants of refugees from Reconquista Spain and of sub-Saharan Africans brought by trade and slavery; Jews were a sizable minority until the mid-20th century, when many left the country. The 2024 census found that 91.9 percent of people use Moroccan Darija and 24.8 percent an Amazigh language: Tachelhit 14.2 percent, Tamazight 7.4 and Tarifit 3.2. Tamazight became an official language beside Arabic in 2011. Islam is the state religion, and most Moroccans are Sunni Muslims of the Mālikī rite.

The coastal plains and plateaus hold three-fourths of the population and almost all commercial farming, mainly rain-fed wheat and barley. The highlands, home to about a fifth of the people, are centers of Amazigh culture, with tightly clustered villages of stone, adobe or tamped earth; some herders move their flocks between summer and winter pastures. South of the Atlas, nearly all settlement is in oases, where dates are the main crop. UNESCO inscribed couscous traditions, shared with Algeria, Mauritania and Tunisia, in 2020.