Language: Arabic
Currency: Moroccan dirham (MAD)
Calling code: +212
Morocco - officially called the Kingdom of Morocco
- is a sovereign country located in the Maghreb, north of Africa,
with coasts in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
It is separated from the European continent by the Strait of
Gibraltar. It borders Algeria to the east - the border has been
closed since 1994, to the southwest with Western Sahara, to the
north with Spain, its main trading partner with which it shares both
maritime and terrestrial borders -Ceuta, Melilla and the squares of
sovereignty- and to the south with Mauritania. It occupies part of
Western Sahara, after the green march of 1975, the signing of the
Tripartite Agreement of Madrid, and the interruption of the process
of decolonization and abandonment of Spain from the territory.
In 1984, the Assembly of the Organization for African Unity
(OAU), predecessor of the AU and of which Morocco was a founding
member, accepted as a member the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
(SADR). the organization. It is a member of the Arab League, the
Arab Maghreb Union, the International Organization of la
Francophonie, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Union
for the Mediterranean, the European Broadcasting Union, the Group of
77 and the North-South Center. It is also a major non-NATO ally of
the United States. It is also the country in the Arab world where
the Spanish language is most studied, with more than 80,000 students
according to the information provided by the Instituto Cervantes in
2015. From 1984 to 2017, it was the only African country that
was not a member of the African Union. The Moroccan State was
reinstated with an absolute majority on January 30, 2017, during the
28th Summit of the African Union, which took place in Ethiopia.
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Souss-Massa National Park is located in the South- west Morocco. This nature reserve covers an area of 33,800 hectares. |
Toubkal National Park is situated 70 kilometres from Marrakech in Western Morocco. The nature reserve covers an area of 380 sq km. |
People inhabited the territory of Morocco from the early
Paleolithic. In the area of Casablanca (Thomas I) and Sale,
instruments of the Acheulean and Mousterian cultures were
discovered. The finds of the early Homo sapiens from Jebel Irhud
date from 240 ± 35 thousand years to 378 ± 30 thousand years of age.
In the most ancient era, the climatic conditions of the region were
more favorable for the life of people. Venus from Tan Tan dates back
over 300 thousand years ago. The age of 108 thousand years is dated
to the skeleton of a child of 8 years old, found in 2010 in Temara.
Ancient history
See also: Prehistoric North Africa and
Carthage
In the first millennium BC, Moroccan lands belonged to
Carthage. From the II century BC e., after the conquest of Carthage
by the Romans, Roman rule began in North Africa. In 429, the
territory of modern Morocco (the Roman province of Mauritania of
Tingitan) was captured by the Vandals, but after a hundred years it
was returned to the empire by the Byzantines.
Medieval
history
In 682, the Arab conquest of North Africa began. The
first Arab state in Morocco was founded in 784 by Imam Idris ibn
Abdallah, who fled from Arabia. The Arab state reached its peak
during the dynasties of the Almoravids and Almohads in the 11th-12th
centuries. Under the Almoravids, Morocco was the center of a vast
empire that occupied the territories of modern Algeria, Libya,
Tunisia and the vast territories of Spain and Portugal. However,
with the fall of the Almohad dynasty, the empire collapsed.
From the beginning of the 15th century, Portuguese and then Spanish
expansion began in Morocco, when several port cities were captured
by Europeans (the first expedition was carried out by the Portuguese
to Ceuta in 1415). However, in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, a new rise of the Moroccan state began to be observed,
which reached its highest power under the Sultan Ahmad al-Mansour,
whose reign is called the "golden age" of the country. At this time
(1591), Moroccan troops led by Dzhudar Pasha captured the Songai
Empire, a state in Western Sudan, taking control of the
trans-Saharan trade in salt and gold. Also during the heyday of the
16th century, the Moroccan sultans managed to expand the territory
of the state to the maximum extent, having captured the majority of
the captured cities from the Spaniards and Portuguese, capturing the
western part of Algeria and pushing the border in the south to
Guinea.
After the death of Ahmad (around 1603), the state
began to weaken as a result of constant internal wars, so that
Mulei-Sherif, a descendant of Ali and Fatima, was easy to overthrow
in the middle of the XVII century. dynasty of the first sultans and
found a new, still ruling, dynasty of Alids, or Joseini. The most
famous of these is Mulei Islam, who ruled from 1672 to 1727 as the
greatest despot. Under his successors, feuds and strife over the
throne increased, leading the country more and more to decline,
before Mulei-Sidi-Mohammed (1757-1789), who was distinguished by
gentleness and desire to introduce European culture, entered the
throne. After his death, the period of internal conflicts and wars
began again. Under the Sultan Mulei-Suleiman (1794-1822), a period
of relative prosperity began again.
In the XVII-XIX
centuries, Morocco was considered a pirate state, since in many
cities the actual power was in the hands of sea pirates. It is
interesting that this did not prevent Morocco from exercising
diplomatic functions; in 1777, Morocco was the first state to
recognize US independence.
Morocco in modern times
During
the Spanish-Moroccan War of 1859-1860, the Kingdom of Spain occupied
part of the land of the Sultanate.
At the end of the 19th century, Morocco (ruled since 1894 by
Moulay Abd al-Aziz) became the object of rivalry between Spain,
France, Britain, and in the 20th century also Germany. France’s
capture of all of the Sahara and part of Sudan, which made her
sovereign of almost all of West Africa, provoked her desire to
prevail in those neighboring states that still retained their
independence. By the Anglo-French agreement on April 8, 1904,
Morocco was recognized as falling within the scope of French
influence; but this agreement aroused protest from Germany. Wilhelm
II visited Morocco in 1905, and after that the German resident in
Fez Tattenbach (German) and Chancellor Bülow launched a campaign
against French influence in Morocco. They demanded that the reform
project in Morocco, developed by France, be considered at a
conference of representatives of interested powers, and not be
carried out by France alone. Delcasse's sharp refusal to enter into
negotiations with Germany on the issue of reforms in Morocco nearly
brought France to an open break with the German Empire. The
intervention of Ruvier and the resignation of Delcasse helped to
settle the conflict, and on July 10, 1905, an agreement was convened
between France and Germany to convene the conference. This agreement
left a whole series of questions open - about the reorganization of
the Moroccan police, the establishment of a bank in Morocco, the
provision of Germany with the port of Mogador in the Atlantic Ocean,
etc. The issue of reorganization of the police brought France and
Germany into conflict. Germany insisted that the reorganization of
the police be entrusted to all interested powers. France strongly
protested against this. As a result, all controversial issues were
referred to the international conference, which met in February 1906
in Algeciras (Spain) and was supposed to decide the fate of Morocco.
As a result of the Moroccan crises of 1905 and 1911, France
acquired most of the territory of Morocco. During World War I, a
large number of Moroccans were drafted into the French army. About
8,000 of them died on the fronts.
The modern period of the
history of Morocco
After a three-year period of mass protests in
a number of areas of the country that turned into insurgent
anti-French action, and the political crisis caused by attempts to
change the king, France recognized Morocco's independence in March
1956, and Spanish Morocco gained independence in April, although
several cities remained with the Spaniards. Morocco becomes a member
of the UN, ILO, IMF, WHO, the League of Arab countries. In 1984,
Morocco withdrew from the African Union in protest against the
adoption of Western Sahara, which Morocco considers its territory.
In July 2016, the king of Morocco officially announced the country's
desire to return to the African Union, and the next year the kingdom
was re-accepted into this organization. Morocco is considered the
traditional ally of the United States and France in the region. In
June 2004, Morocco received the status of the main non-NATO ally of
the United States. At the same time, trade agreements were signed
with the US and the EU.