Morocco’s Geography, History, Economy, and Culture

Do you remember hearing about stories of flying carpets? These stories are traced back to the Arab culture, and most Moroccans now share this culture. Like Morocco’s famous rugs woven with different colors, old and new customs intertwine to make one culture. In this paper, you will explore Morocco’s geography, history, economy, and culture.

Morocco is located in northern Africa and borders the Mediterranean to the north, the Atlantic to the west, Algeria to the east, and Mauritania is to the south. Morocco has an area of 274,152 sq. mi, with the Western Sahara accounting for 101,823 sq. mi (Blauer & Lauré, 1999). Morocco's southern border is the Western Sahara (Piazza, 2007). The population is 31,627,428 (Infoplease, 2013).

Morocco has four major regions: the Coastal Lowlands, the Interior Mountains, Sahara region, and the High Plateaus (Piazza, 2007). Four mountain ranges stretch across Morocco, which are the Rif Mountains and three sections of the Atlas Mountains: Anti-Atlas, Grand Atlas, and Middle Atlas. Jebel Toukbal, the highest mountain in North Africa, is located in the Grand Atlas (Blauer & Lauré, 1999).

Morocco's climate is Mediterranean with more extreme weather in the interior region (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013). There are year-round hot conditions in the south and east (Piazza, 2007). The rainy season is from about October to May, and the dry season, from May to October (Perkins, 2010).

Rabat, the capital, is home to the king's palace as well as the rest of its government (Piazza, 2007). Several large cities are Casablanca, Fez, and Marrakech (Infoplease, 2013). Casablanca is Morocco's industrial, commercial, and financial hub famous for its whitewashed buildings (Piazza, 2007). Marrakech is Morocco's main tourist attraction. Fez is Morocco’s spiritual and cultural center (Blauer & Lauré, 1999).

Morocco has a variety of flora and fauna such as olive trees, almond, citrus, and fruit trees, jackals, rabbits, porcupines, hedgehogs, wild boars, mountain cats, Barbary sheep, hawks, eagles, owls, hyenas, fennec, jerboas, sand rats, scorpions, and various snakes (Piazza, 2007). Morocco has the second-largest number of mules in Africa. People often use camels for desert transport (Blauer & Lauré, 1999).

The Berbers first arrived in Morocco in 2000 B.C. (Infoplease, 2013). They were mainly farmers and herders from Asia. The Roman Empire conquered Carthage and northern Morocco in the 40’s A.D. In the 429, a northern European people called the Vandals took control, but the Byzantine Empire defeated them.