Morocco is a nation located in northern Africa,
bordered by the Atlantic
Ocean, the Mediterranean
Sea, Algeria and
Western
Sahara.
It has a total land area of 446,500 square kilometers, and in comparative size is slightly larger than California. A major mountain range is the Atlas mountain range which runs diagonally through the country.
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, its formal name being the Kingdom of Morocco.
The capital city is Rabat. Other major cities are Casablanca, Fez and Marrakesh.
The population is 99.1 percent Arab-Berber, other 0.7 percent and (Sephardic) Jewish 0.2 percent. Arabic is the official language, but French is often used for government, business and diplomatic functions. Berber is also spoken.
Islam is the majority religion with 98.7 percent of the total population Sunni Muslims from the arabized Berber ethnic group. Christianity is the religion of 1.1 percent, mostly foreigners, and Judaism of 0.2 percent of the remainder of the population.
Morocco occupies a strategic location on the northwest coast of Africa, across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. It has been a crossroads for land and sea trade between Africa and Europe since at least the 8th century AD, and a center of piracy in the 16th to mid-19th centuries when the Berber dynasties had declined and Morocco was one of the Barbary States under the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire. The “Barbary pirates” take their name from the Berber inhabitants of the northern coast. In the twentieth century, Morocco was first occupied by Spain, then became a protectorate of France, gaining independence in 1956.
Famous Hollywood movies have been set in Morocco, among them “Casablanca” and “Road to Morocco.”
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