Rabat, Casablanca & the Atlantic Coast

The Bou Regreg estuary has been settled since antiquity: the Phoenician and Roman town of Sala stood at Chellah, on the Rabat side. The Almohads built a fortified camp, the ribat that gave Rabat its name, and in the late 12th century Sultan Yaqub al-Mansur began a great mosque there whose minaret, the Hassan Tower, was never finished. The Marinids turned Chellah into a royal necropolis, while Salé, across the river, grew into the main port.

In the early 17th century Muslims expelled from Spain settled in Rabat's kasbah, and Salé and Rabat became a base for corsairs, the "Salé Rovers", who raided shipping as far as the British Isles and for a time governed themselves as an independent republic. Further south the Portuguese held Mazagan, today's El Jadida, until 1769, and destroyed the town of Anfa in 1468; it was rebuilt as Casablanca, Dar el-Beida, in the 18th century under Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah.

The French made Rabat the capital of their protectorate in 1912, and Resident-General Lyautey laid out a new administrative city beside the medina. Casablanca became the protectorate's port and industrial centre, expanding from a small town into the country's largest city, and in 1943 Roosevelt and Churchill met there at the Anfa Conference. Kénitra, then called Port-Lyautey, grew as a river port and later hosted an American naval air station. After independence Rabat remained the capital, and Casablanca's slums, strikes and riots made it the focus of social unrest in the 1960s and 1980s. The bombings of 2003 in Casablanca, and the building of the Hassan II Mosque, completed in 1993, both marked the city's modern history.

This is Morocco at its most modern and cosmopolitan. Casablanca, known simply as Casa, is a city of offices, cafés, art deco apartment blocks and nightlife, where French is spoken freely alongside Darija and dress and manners are more relaxed than anywhere else in the country. The popular district of Hay Mohammadi produced Nass El Ghiwane, the band that reshaped Moroccan music in the 1970s, and Casablanca's rival football clubs Raja and Wydad play one of Africa's most intense derbies. Rabat is quieter and more official — a city of ministries, embassies and universities — and hosts the Mawazine festival each summer.

Older traditions persist. Salé's medina keeps its crafts and its candle procession on the eve of the Prophet's birthday, when ornate wax lanterns are carried through the streets. On the plains behind the coast, the Doukkala and Chaouia are known for tbourida, the mounted charge of horsemen firing muskets in unison, which is a highlight of summer moussems such as that of Moulay Abdallah near El Jadida and is recognised as UNESCO intangible heritage.

The Zemmour of the Khémisset area are Amazigh, while the coastal plains are Arabic-speaking, and many families in the big cities come from elsewhere in Morocco, giving Casablanca in particular a mixed identity.

The two regions together hold over twelve million people, roughly a third of Morocco. Greater Casablanca has well over three million inhabitants; Salé has over a million, Rabat around 500,000, and Kénitra, Mohammedia, Témara, El Jadida, Settat and Berrechid are all sizeable towns.

Casablanca is the country's economic capital, home to the stock exchange, the major banks, a major port, much of its industry and the Casablanca Finance City business district. Rabat lives on government, diplomacy and education, while Kénitra has become a car-manufacturing centre with a Stellantis plant. Near El Jadida, the Jorf Lasfar complex processes phosphates and fertilisers, and the plains behind the coast are farmed.

Daily life runs on long commutes, packed trams, traffic jams and crowded cafés. Housing is the big issue: shanty towns have been cleared in large rehousing programmes, while rents and property prices have soared. Weekends see city families head for the Corniche, the malls and the beaches.

The coast eats fish. Casablanca's central market has stalls that grill the day's catch, and sardines, sole, shrimp and calamari are everyday fare in the port towns. Oualidia, on a lagoon south of El Jadida, is known across Morocco for its oysters, eaten raw with lemon.

Across the region, as elsewhere in Morocco, families make rfissa, shredded msemen flatbread soaked in a broth of chicken, lentils and fenugreek, traditionally served after a birth, and for couscous and tagines made with the region's lamb and vegetables. Pastilla, one of Morocco's best-known dishes, is made for family occasions.

Street food in the big cities ranges from sfenj, ring-shaped fried doughnuts eaten at breakfast, to snail broth, grilled merguez and harira. Casablanca's cafés serve café au lait and pastries in French style, and Moroccan mint tea is everywhere.

Rabat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has the Kasbah of the Udayas above the river mouth, with its blue-and-white lanes and Andalusian garden; the Hassan Tower and the marble Mausoleum of Mohammed V; the ruins of Chellah; and the modern Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Across the Bou Regreg, Salé has its medina, its Great Mosque and the Marinid medersa, and the new Mohammed VI Tower rises on the river bank.

Casablanca's great sight is the Hassan II Mosque, whose minaret, one of the tallest in the world, rises over a prayer hall built partly over the sea. The city also has the art deco streets of the centre, the Habous quarter built by the French in a Moroccan style, the old medina, and the Corniche at Aïn Diab. Mohammedia, to the north-east, is a beach and port town.

North of Rabat, Kénitra sits on the Sebou river near the surf beach of Mehdia and its old kasbah, the Sidi Boughaba lake and the Merja Zerga lagoon at Moulay Bousselham, a wintering ground for birds. The Atlantic surf beaches run all along the coast, from the Plage des Nations to Bouznika and Dar Bouazza. To the south, El Jadida's Portuguese city has ramparts and a vaulted cistern; Azemmour sits on the Oum Er-Rbia river nearby, and Oualidia is further down the coast.