Morocco
Discover Morocco
Introduction
Morocco sits at the northwest corner of Africa, fourteen kilometres from Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, with an Atlantic coast on one side and a Mediterranean one on the other. That position has made it a crossing point for two thousand years, and the culture reflects Amazigh, Arab, Andalusian, Saharan and French layers rather than any single inheritance.
The geography changes fast. The Atlas Mountains run diagonally across the country, rising above 4,000 metres and holding snow into spring, with fertile plains on the Atlantic side and the Sahara beginning immediately on the other.
The four imperial cities — Fès, Marrakesh, Meknès and Rabat — each held the capital at different periods, and Fès el-Bali remains one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world.
Roughly a third of Moroccans speak an Amazigh language, and Tamazight is an official language alongside Arabic.