Morocco

 

 

 

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.

 

Travel Destinations in Morocco

 

Souss-Massa National Park   Souss-Massa National Park is located in the South- west Morocco. This nature reserve covers an area of 33,800 hectares.

Toubkal National Park   Toubkal National Park is situated 70 kilometres from Marrakech in Western Morocco. The nature reserve covers an area of 380 sq km.

 

 

 

 

History of Morocco

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.