MARRAKESH (erroneously MOROCCO or MAROCCO CITY), southern capital and largest town of Morocco. It lies in a spacious plain—Blad el Hamra, "The Red"—about 15 m. from the north ern underfalls of the Atlas, and 96 m. E.S.E. of Saffi, at a height of 465 metres. Ranking during the early centuries of its existence as one of the greatest cities of Islam, Marrakesh has long been in a state of grievous decay, but it is rendered attractive by the exceptional beauty of its situation, the luxuriant groves and gar dens by which it is encompassed and interspersed, and the mag nificent outlook which it enjoys towards the mountains. Open spaces of great extent are numerous within the walls. Tabiya or rammed concrete of red earth and stone is the almost universal building material, and the houses are consequently seldom more than two storeys in height. The great square, Djemaa-el-Fna, situated in the middle of Marrakesh, is crowded daily; the very extensive suks are situated on the edges of the square. The palace of the sultan covers an extensive area, and beyond it lie the imperial parks of Agudal, 3 km. long and 1,50o metres wide, planted with fruit trees of all sorts ; the palm grove which sur rounds Marrakesh stretches as far as the Tensift; it covers 13,000 hectares and contains 90,00o palm-trees.
The ramparts of Marrakesh are pierced by monumental gate ways; the most beautiful is the Kasba gate, Bab-Aguenaou. The chief religious buildings are the mosque of Koutoubiya, or Mosque of the Scribes (12th century), with its monumental tower 67.5 metres high, the most beautiful monument of Marra kesh ; the mosque of Kasba or Djama-Moulay-Yazid, near to which are the tombs of the Sa'adi sharifs, fine monuments in which are buried the sovereigns of the last-but-one Moroccan dynasty ( 16th-17th centuries) ; D jama-el-Mouasine ; D jama Bab-Doukkala, the sanctuary of Sidi-ben Slimane-el-Djazouli, that of Sidi-bel-Abbes, patron of Marrakesh; the medersa Ben Youssef (16th century). There are three beautiful monumental fountains, those of El-Mouasine, of Sidi-el-Hassan or Ali and of Sekkaia Echrob ou-Chouf. The palace of Babia, built from 1894 to 1900, serves to-day as Residence.
A European town was built 2.5 km. from the original one, at
the foot of the hill of Gueliz (527 metres), which is crowned by a military camp. Founded in 1913, it is traversed by wide avenues bordered with trees. The pop. (1931) of Marrakesh is 195,122, of which 21,607 are Jews and 8,788 Europeans. The natives are a mixture of the descendants of Andalusian Moors of original Rehemna of the neighbouring plains, of Chleuk mountaineers and of Sahara Draoua. Marrakesh is the chief town of the region of Marrakesh, the residence of a khalif of the sultan and the centre of action of the grand Kaid Glaoud. It is connected by good roads with Mazagan, Mogador, Safi and Casablanca; a broad gauge railway (I metre 44), finished in 1928, joins Marrakesh to Casablanca (25o kilometres).
Marrakesh, designated Morocco by the old European authors, was founded in 1062 by Youssef-ben-Tachfin, founder of the dynasty of the Almoravides. It was from Marrakesh that Abd el-Moumen, the first sovereign of the dynasty of the Almohades, set out to conquer all Northern Africa, and it was that town that he made the capital of his empire (1147). From 1184 to 1198, the sultan Yakout-el-Mansour built there the mosque and the tower of Koutoubiya, at the same time that he caused to be built the Giralda at Seville and the mosque of the tower iof Hassan at Rabat, the most famous monuments of the Almohade period and the best built of the Maghreb. The Merinide sultans preferred Fez to Marrakesh, but the Saadi sharifs again made it the chief Moroccan capital. The Alaouite sharifs of the reign ing dynasty, from time to time, stay there for more or less pro longed periods, and are erecting various buildings there. After a violent combat at Sidi-bou-Othman, where he put to flight the bands of the insurgent El-Hoba, Col. Mangin entered Marrakesh with the French troops on Sept. 7, 1912.