Agadir is the beachy, modern face of Morocco, a destination that breaks with the image of maze-like medinas and age-old souks. There are no medieval alleys or centuries-old palaces here, and the reason is dramatic: in 1960, a brutal earthquake destroyed the city in fifteen seconds and killed some 15,000 people. Agadir was rebuilt from scratch a few kilometres further south, with modern urban planning, wide avenues, low earthquake-resistant buildings and a clear calling as a seaside resort. The result is a city of sun, beach and rest, very different from the rest of the country.
Its great treasure is the beach: a crescent of golden sand several kilometres long, sheltered from the wind, with a long palm-lined promenade full of hotels, cafés and restaurants. Add to that an enviable climate (more than 300 days of sunshine a year, mild even in winter), golf courses, a yacht marina, spas and a top-level surf scene right on the city's doorstep, in Taghazout. Agadir is the place in Morocco to slow down, lie in the sun and recharge your batteries.
This guide covers what Agadir has to offer with a practical eye: the beach and the promenade, the Kasbah of Oufella (the only remnant of the old city) with its new cable car and views, the gigantic Souk El Had, the Marina, and the must-do excursions in the surrounding area, from the surf of Taghazout to the natural pools of Paradise Valley. As everywhere in Morocco, in the souk it's worth HAGGLING and knowing how to say 'no, thank you' to pushy sellers, but the atmosphere in Agadir is relaxed and touristy, without the pressure of the big medinas of the interior.
Agadir has ancient roots: there was a Berber settlement here and, in the 16th century, the Portuguese built a fortress (Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué) that the Saadian sultan Mohammed ech-Cheikh took from them in 1541, a decisive blow in driving the Portuguese out of southern Morocco. Under the Saadians and later the Alaouites, Agadir was a trading port, although Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah closed it in the 18th century to favour Essaouira. In 1911, the 'Agadir Crisis' —when a German gunboat was sent into its bay— nearly triggered a European war and hastened the colonial carve-up of Morocco. The city grew under the French protectorate, but its history was split in two by the catastrophe of 29 February 1960, when an earthquake destroyed it completely and killed some 15,000 people. King Mohammed V decided to rebuild it further south, and modern Agadir was born from that reconstruction. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Red City founded by the Almoravids at the foot of the Atlas, capital of empires and today the tourist heart of Morocco, alongside the Atlantic ports of Essaouira, the old Mogador of Jewish merchants and traders, and Agadir, the former Portuguese stronghold reborn after the earthquake.
Read the history of Marrakesh and the Atlantic coast →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have over 20 activities in Agadir. Three are below so you get the idea: tap any of them and they all open.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
In the Berber language, the word 'agadir' means 'wall' or 'fortified granary'. It was the name for the communal buildings where the tribes of the south kept their grain and goods safe. The name gives away where the place began: as a Berber settlement on the fertile Souss plain, open to the Atlantic. The Chleuh, the large Berber branch of south-western Morocco, have lived here since very early times.
Agadir's written history really begins in the early 16th century. The Portuguese were then pushing to control Morocco's Atlantic coast as part of their expansion towards Africa and the Indies. Around 1505 they set up a trading post here and built a fortress they called Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué. For decades, Agadir was one of Portugal's strongholds on the Moroccan coast, along with Safi, Azemmour, Mazagan (El Jadida) and Mogador.
Portuguese rule ended in 1541. The Saadi dynasty had risen in the south preaching jihad against the Christians. It laid siege to the fortress, and Sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh took it after the siege. The fall of Santa Cruz was a decisive blow: it marked the beginning of the end of the Portuguese presence in southern Morocco and sped up their withdrawal from other strongholds. Under the Saadis, Agadir became a thriving trading port, the outlet to the sea for sugar, copper and goods from the rich Souss valley. In 1540 the kasbah was built on the hill, and its ruins still crown the city.
Agadir enjoyed a period of commercial prosperity in the 16th and 17th centuries. Its port exported sugar from the Souss plantations, argan oil, wax, hides and other goods, and it traded with European merchants. The kasbah on the hill watched over the bay and the town clustered below it.
In the 18th century, though, the policies of the Alaouite sultans changed Agadir's fate. In 1760, Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah founded and built up the port of Essaouira (Mogador) as the great royal port of the Atlantic. He decided to concentrate international trade there, and to help it along he ordered the port of Agadir closed around 1760-1767. The city then began a long decline that lasted more than a century. Agadir shrank to a modest settlement dominated by its old kasbah, while Essaouira took over the sea trade of the south.
Agadir would not regain importance until well into the 20th century. The revival came first through an international crisis that put its name in headlines across Europe, and then through French colonisation, which rebuilt the port and made Agadir a growing city once again, the hub of the rich farming and fishing region of the Souss.
In the summer of 1911, Agadir suddenly found itself at the centre of world politics. The great powers were locked in a tense imperial race, and Morocco was one of the last pieces left to share out. France already controlled much of the country in practice. When it sent troops to Fez, claiming it needed to put down a revolt, the German Empire read this as a step towards a French annexation of Morocco.
In response, and as a show of strength, Germany sent a gunboat, the SMS Panther, into the bay of Agadir. The episode is known as the 'Panther's Leap' (Panthersprung). The arrival of the German warship in Moroccan waters set off a very serious diplomatic crisis, the Second Moroccan Crisis or Agadir Crisis. For weeks, people feared a European war between Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
The crisis was settled through diplomacy. Under the treaty of November 1911, Germany recognised French dominance over Morocco in exchange for territory in the Congo. That cleared the way for the Treaty of Fez to establish the French protectorate over Morocco in 1912. But the Agadir Crisis left deep wounds in relations between the powers. Historians see it as one of the many episodes that kept raising tension in Europe until the First World War broke out three years later. Under the French protectorate, Agadir was given a modern port and grew into the economic capital of the south, with new neighbourhoods and a rising population.
The night of 29 February 1960 splits Agadir's history in two. At 23:40, an earthquake struck the city and shook it for about fifteen seconds. Its magnitude was fairly moderate, but its epicentre was very shallow and very close to the city. Fifteen seconds was enough. In that short time, whole neighbourhoods collapsed on their sleeping residents: the kasbah and the old Talborjt district, the commercial centre, the Founti district by the port. The city was almost completely destroyed.
It was one of the worst disasters in Moroccan history. An estimated 15,000 people died, nearly a third of the population at the time, and tens of thousands were injured or left homeless. The scale of the destruction shocked the country and the world, and international aid arrived for the rescue effort and to care for survivors. Because of the health risk, and because the city could not be recovered, much of the ruined centre was covered with sand and lime, turning the site into a vast burial ground.
Morocco was a young independent country at the time, having regained its sovereignty only four years earlier, in 1956, and it took on the task of rebuilding. King Mohammed V said words that became famous and sum up the resolve of those days: if fate had willed the destruction of Agadir, its reconstruction depended on the faith and will of the people. The decision was not to rebuild on the same spot but to build a new city a few kilometres to the south, to modern, earthquake-resistant standards.
Modern Agadir was born from that tragedy. In the decades after the earthquake, the city was rebuilt from scratch to a contemporary urban plan. It has wide tree-lined avenues, low earthquake-resistant buildings, large green spaces and an orderly layout that turned its back on the old medieval town, which could not be recovered. Of the past, only the Agadir Oufella kasbah on the hilltop still stands, now restored. It has become a memorial to the victims, and on the hillside below it giant letters light up at night with the country's motto in Arabic.
The new Agadir committed firmly to two economic engines. The first is fishing: its port is one of Morocco's largest, with a major sardine-canning industry. The second is sun-and-beach tourism. The climate is exceptional, with more than 300 days of sunshine a year and mild temperatures even in winter, and the bay is sheltered and beautiful. From the 1970s and 1980s, these made Agadir the country's leading resort town, with large hotels, resorts, golf courses and European visitors looking for sun all year round.
In recent decades, Agadir has kept growing and modernising. It has developed the Marina, new tourist areas such as Taghazout Bay, the cable car up to the kasbah (opened in 2022) and a modern transport network. At the same time, thanks to the waves at Taghazout, the region has established itself as a world surfing capital, and as a base for exploring the Anti-Atlas, Paradise Valley and Souss-Massa National Park. Agadir today is young in every sense, rebuilt just over half a century ago. It lacks the ancient monuments of the imperial cities, but its sunny modern surface hides an intense and tragic history, and it has a clear role as the Atlantic gateway to southern Morocco.
