Casablanca is the modern, urban, hard-working face of Morocco, a metropolis of skyscrapers, traffic and business that surprises anyone arriving in search of ancient medinas and storybook souks. It isn't an imperial city or a classic tourist destination: it's the country's economic capital, its biggest port and its industrial and financial engine, a city of almost four million people that looks more to the future than to the past. That's why many travellers just pass through; but Casablanca has a personality of its own and deserves at least a day.
Its undisputed symbol is the Hassan II Mosque, one of the largest in the world, built partly over the Atlantic Ocean and crowned by the tallest religious minaret on the planet. It's also one of the very few mosques in Morocco that non-Muslims can visit inside, on guided tours, and the interior is simply breathtaking. Casablanca's other great draw is its architecture: the art deco and neo-Moorish legacy of the French protectorate years, which turns the centre into an open-air museum of façades from the 1920s and 1930s.
This guide covers the essentials of Casablanca with a practical eye: the Hassan II Mosque and how to visit it, the architecture of the centre, the old medina and the Habous district, the Ain Diab Corniche and its atmosphere, and tips for getting around by tram and taxi without being overcharged. A word on the movie myth: the film 'Casablanca' (1942) wasn't shot here but in Hollywood studios, although the city has made the most of it with places like Rick's Café. Casablanca isn't the postcard version of Morocco, but it's the country at its most lively and contemporary.
Casablanca grew up on an old Berber port called Anfa, which in the Middle Ages was a base for corsairs until the Portuguese razed it in the 15th century and later built a fortress they called Casa Branca ('white house'); that, along with its Spanish translation Casablanca, is where the name comes from. After the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the Portuguese abandoned the town and the Alaouite sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah rebuilt it in the 18th century under the Arabic name Dar el-Beida. But the great transformation came with the French protectorate (1912-1956): Marshal Lyautey and the urban planner Henri Prost turned the modest port into a large modern city, with an artificial harbour, European-style districts and an explosion of art deco and neo-Moorish architecture that made it famous. After independence in 1956, Casablanca established itself as the country's economic capital. Its newest and most emblematic monument, the Hassan II Mosque, opened in 1993. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The axis of Moroccan power: Casablanca, the economic metropolis of the colonial era; Rabat, the quiet capital on the Atlantic; Meknes, the Versailles of Moulay Ismail; Fez, the spiritual capital and its thousand-year-old medina; and Volubilis, the Roman city among the olive groves.
Read the history of Casablanca and the imperial cities (Fez, Meknes, Rabat) →If you book from here we earn a commission and you pay no more. Prices and availability come from Civitatis.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Before it was Casablanca, this stretch of the Atlantic coast was called Anfa, and its history goes back to Antiquity. The Phoenicians and the Romans were both here, and in the Middle Ages Anfa was a Berber port of some importance. In the 12th and 13th centuries it was the head of a small independent state and a busy centre of trade with the Mediterranean and northern Europe. But Anfa became notorious for something else: piracy. From its harbour, corsairs launched attacks on Portuguese and Spanish ships and on the Iberian coasts, and the town became a constant threat to Atlantic shipping.
That piracy sealed its fate. In 1468, a large Portuguese expedition razed Anfa in reprisal and punishment, leaving it in ruins and empty. Decades later, well into the 16th century, the Portuguese came back and built a fortress and a trading post on the site. They called it Casa Branca, Portuguese for 'white house', after the colour of the buildings that could be seen from the sea. That name, and its Spanish equivalent 'Casablanca', gave the city its current name. In Arabic it is known as Dar el-Beida, which means exactly the same thing: 'the white house'.
The Portuguese presence, however, was fragile and patchy. Casa Branca never became a major stronghold like the ones Portugal held in Safi or Mazagan, and its fortunes rose and fell with the ups and downs of the Moroccan coast.
The fate of little Casa Branca changed because of a disaster far away. The great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 devastated the Portuguese capital and was felt along the whole Atlantic seaboard. It also damaged buildings on the Moroccan coast, and the Portuguese finally abandoned the enclave for good. For a few decades the place was left half empty.
It was the Alawite sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah (Mohammed III), the same ruler who founded the port of Essaouira in 1760, who decided to rebuild the town in the second half of the 18th century. He had the city built again, with its mosque, its walled medina and its fortifications, and gave it the Arabic name Dar el-Beida. The new city was still a modest port, overshadowed by other, more important Moroccan towns, but trade slowly started to pick up again.
The real take-off came in the 19th century. As Europe industrialised and the demand for raw materials grew, Dar el-Beida became an increasingly busy export port, shipping mainly wool, grain and other farm produce from the fertile Chaouia plain around it. European merchants and consuls settled here, the population grew and the city began to spill beyond its old walls. By the early 20th century, Casablanca was already Morocco's main commercial port, and that economic weight drew the greed of the colonial powers like a magnet.
In 1907, after violent incidents at the port in which European workers were killed, France bombarded and occupied Casablanca, a foretaste of what was to come. In 1912, the Treaty of Fez established the French protectorate over Morocco, and Casablanca became colonial France's great urban project in the country.
The mastermind was Marshal Hubert Lyautey, the first resident-general. He chose Casablanca as the economic capital and the engine of modern Morocco, and gave the job of planning it to the urban planner Henri Prost. Between 1912 and the 1930s, Casablanca was transformed dramatically. A large artificial port was built, and a new city was laid out outside the old medina, with boulevards, monumental squares and residential districts. The result was one of the largest concentrations of modern architecture of its time. European and Moroccan architects filled the city with art deco and art nouveau buildings and with the distinctive 'mauresque' or neo-Moorish style, which blended European forms with traditional Moroccan decoration. Place Mohammed V (then Place de France or Place Lyautey) and Boulevard Mohammed V became the showcase of this cosmopolitan, prosperous Casablanca. Its population was booming, as huge numbers of Moroccans arrived from the countryside and Europeans arrived from abroad.
During the Second World War, Casablanca was the setting for a major historical event. In January 1943, the Casablanca Conference was held in the Anfa district. There, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to plan Allied strategy and announced the policy of 'unconditional surrender' for the Axis powers. The city had been occupied by the Allies after the landings in North Africa and was already an international crossroads: the cosmopolitan, intrigue-filled Casablanca that Hollywood would turn into legend that same year.
Casablanca played a leading role in the nationalist movement and in the struggle for Moroccan independence. Its working-class districts, which had grown up with industrialisation, saw strikes, demonstrations and riots against colonial rule in the 1940s and 1950s. When Morocco regained its independence in 1956, Casablanca was by far the largest city in the country and its undisputed economic capital, although the political capital stayed in Rabat.
In the following decades the city grew fast and without much order. Industry, the port (one of the largest in Africa), banking and services made Casablanca the productive heart of Morocco, and millions of people came from the countryside looking for work. That growth also brought huge challenges: shanty towns (bidonvilles), social inequality and tensions that erupted into urban violence, such as the serious riots of 1965 and 1981. In 2003, the city was also hit by a series of terrorist attacks that killed dozens of people and damaged its image.
Despite all this, Casablanca kept modernising and became the showcase of contemporary Morocco. In 1993 it opened its most ambitious and iconic monument, the gigantic Hassan II Mosque. King Hassan II wanted it built partly over the ocean, and much of the cost was covered by public subscription. With its 210-metre minaret, it instantly became the symbol of the city and one of the largest mosques in the world.
21st-century Casablanca is a metropolis of almost four million people, among the largest cities in the Maghreb and one of the leading cities in Africa. It is the financial, industrial and commercial heart of Morocco. This is where you'll find the Casablanca Stock Exchange, the headquarters of the big banks and companies, the country's largest port and an international financial centre (Casablanca Finance City) that aims to make the city the gateway for investment into Africa.
The city has invested in modernising its transport with an extensive tram and bus rapid transit network. It has developed new areas such as the Corniche of Ain Diab and large shopping centres such as the Morocco Mall. It is also trying, with more difficulty, to protect its exceptional art deco heritage, one of the most remarkable collections in the world, although many buildings are suffering from decay and pressure from property developers. Local associations are fighting to save this unique legacy.
Casablanca doesn't offer travellers the ancient medinas or the palaces of the imperial cities. It is more a city for living and working than for traditional tourism. Still, its mix of modernity and contrasts, its cosmopolitan feel, its food, its 20th-century heritage and, above all, the breathtaking Hassan II Mosque over the Atlantic make it a stop that sums up the face of contemporary Morocco like no other: a country looking at its past and its future at the same time.
