Morocco - About the Country


Located in the northern part of the African continent, adjoining the Strait of Gibraltar. The local languages are Moroccan Arabic and Berber, but French is widely spoken, a relic of colonial days. About 14% of the land mass is karst supporting nearly 1000 known caves. The main limestone areas are the mountains of Er Rif, the Middle Atlas, the Anti Atlas and the High Atlas. There are two show caves: Grottes D’Hercule and Gouffre Friouato.

Morocco is inhabited since prehistoric times, during thirty centuries Prehistoric, Roman, Berber, and Arab cultures existed here. This rich past has left some surprising cave dwellings at Erfoud, Foum El Hassan, Merkala, Tamegoul, Taourirt, Taous, and Tarraga.

The country is huge and arid, agriculture is restricted to irrigated river plains, only few rivers do not dry up during summer, and thus allow irrigation. But there are 10,000 years of human inhabitation or more. The area was more humid during the last ice age, and thus there were rivers, lakes, and grasland, where today only desert can be found.

The country has a good infrastructure, multiple motorways, and a basic railroad infrastructure. It also has a lot of tourism, domestic as well as foreign. There are beaches on the Atlantic as well as on the Mediterranean Sea. But the country is a kingdom, current ruler is His Majesty King Mohammed VI. And it is a muslim country. Both facts are important for tourism. Two basic rules are obvious: no discussions about royalty and no discussions about religion! Avoid being executed for lese majesty or being stoned for blasphemy. The basic rule to dress and behave appropriate when visiting a church, in this case a mosque or other religious place, applies worldwide, but here it is more important. Especially the clothes and behaviour of women in public are essential. The fact that many tourists refrain from visiting the country if any act of islamic terror is in the news, is actually an overreaction. This is the westernmost islamic country in Africa and far from the riots in the eastern part, as far as we know there has been no incident in the country so far.