Kenitra

Kenitra is one of Morocco's youngest cities, but the site is old. The Sebou, one of the country's main rivers, was navigable inland from the Atlantic, and the Romans built the port town and fort of Thamusida on its bank south-west of the modern city. At the river mouth, the fortress of Mehdya changed hands repeatedly: the Portuguese seized the place briefly in 1515, a Spanish garrison built a fort there in 1614, and after the Spanish were driven out in 1681 the Alaouite sultan Moulay Ismail rebuilt the kasbah that still stands on the bluff.

The city itself dates from 1913, when the French protectorate authorities chose a point on the Sebou where ocean-going vessels could reach to build a new port for the Gharb plain. It was named Port-Lyautey after Resident-General Hubert Lyautey and laid out as a grid of avenues behind the quays, with warehouses, a railway and colonial farms on the reclaimed marshland around it. In November 1942 the area saw sharp fighting when American forces landed at Mehdya during Operation Torch and fought for the airfield and the kasbah.

After the landings the United States kept a naval air station here for decades, and its presence shaped the city's economy and its music and street life until it was wound down in the 1970s. At independence in 1956 the city was renamed Kenitra, from the Arabic for "little bridge". It has since grown quickly as a regional capital of the Gharb, and in the past fifteen years its free zone and a large car assembly plant have turned it into one of Morocco's industrial centres, while the Al Boraq high-speed line has tied it closely to Rabat, Casablanca and Tangier.

Kenitra has the character of a new city: no medina, no imperial monuments, and a population drawn from the surrounding countryside and from across Morocco in the course of a single century. Its identity is built on work, on the Gharb plain behind it and on the sea a few kilometres west. Arabic in speech and largely Arabic in origin, the population also includes many families with roots in the Rif, the Middle Atlas and the Sahara who came for jobs in the port, the farms and the factories.

Social life happens in the cafés of the central avenues, in the markets and, above all, on the coast. From June onwards the city empties towards Mehdya at weekends, and the beach, the breakwater and the cafés along the front become the city's living room. Football is followed with passion, and Kenitra Athletic Club, founded in 1938, is one of the older sides in Moroccan football. The university and the technical schools give the centre a student population and a lively evening street life during term.

Rural traditions survive close by rather than in the city. Moussems at local shrines across the Gharb draw fairs and crowds in summer, tbourida horsemanship is performed at them, and the weekly souks of the plain still set the rhythm of the countryside. In the city, the ordinary courtesies hold: greetings before business, mint tea offered at every opportunity, Friday couscous with family, and modest dress in the older quarters.

About 508,000 people live in Kenitra at the 2024 census, making it one of Morocco's ten largest cities and the capital of its province. Growth has been fast, and new estates and apartment blocks have spread east and north over what was farmland; the older protectorate grid at the centre now holds only a small share of the population.

Work comes from three directions. The Gharb is among Morocco's most productive farming regions, irrigated from the Sebou and growing sugar beet, cereals, citrus, strawberries and vegetables, with food processing in and around the city. The river port handles bulk cargoes, and the Atlantic Free Zone on the eastern edge has drawn car assembly and component factories, aerospace suppliers and electronics firms; the car plant employs thousands and has pulled workers in from across the region. Public administration, the university and the hospitals add the rest.

Everyday life is that of a busy provincial city: crowded petits taxis, morning markets, long café afternoons, and heavy traffic on the roads to Rabat. Commuting to the capital by train is common. The recurring local issues are housing costs in the newer districts, winter flooding on the low-lying plain when the Sebou rises, water supply after successive dry years, and the pollution pressure that industry and intensive farming put on the river and the coastal wetlands.

Kenitra eats from the plain and the river mouth. The Gharb produces oranges, mandarins, strawberries, sugar beet, rice and vegetables, and the markets fill with them in season; strawberries from the fields around Moulay Bousselham and Larache are sold by the crate in spring. Chicken and lamb from the plain go into tagines, and Friday couscous is steamed over a broth of meat and seven vegetables.

The coast supplies the rest. At Mehdya, sole, sea bream, mullet, prawns and calamari come in at the river mouth and are fried or grilled plainly, with cumin, salt, bread and a chopped salad; shad and eel from the Sebou itself have long been local specialities. Sardines, cheap and everywhere, are grilled over charcoal or stuffed with a paste of coriander, garlic and paprika and fried in pairs.

Breakfast is bissara, the dried broad bean purée with olive oil and cumin, or msemen and harcha with honey and butter; sfenj doughnuts are fried on street corners. Harira soup breaks the fast in Ramadan, and chebakia, fried and soaked in honey and sesame, sits beside it. Rfissa, shredded msemen in a fenugreek, lentil and chicken broth, is made for family occasions, as across the Atlantic plains. Mint tea, poured from height and heavily sweetened, and strong coffee in the French manner are drunk all day in the cafés of the centre.