MOROCCO (MAR0c), a country of Northern Africa, which forms with Algeria and Tunis a large geographical unit, the Djezira-el-Maghrib (Isle of the West) of the Arab geographers, the Barbary of the Europeans; it lies between 35° and 29° N. lat, and between io° and I° W. long. Morocco is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, on the north-west by the Atlantic ocean, on the south by the Sahara, on which side there is no frontier nor definite boundary, on the east by Algeria. On the Algerian border, the treaty of 1845 between France and Morocco fixed the frontier over only about 10o km. from the sea to the point called Teniet-es-Sassi ; beyond that there was merely an indication as to which tribes and ksurs or villages were Moroc can and which Algerian ; in the Sahara all delimitation was con sidered superfluous. From this absence of definite boundaries and from the fact that France did not claim the natural frontier of the Muluya many difficulties have arisen. They were brought to an end by the establishment of the French protectorate over Morocco in 1912, and the question has lost much of its interest. The total surface of Morocco included within a line drawn through the Algerian frontier, Beni-Abbes, Tamgrut and the course of Wad Dra'a is 519,980 sq.km. or 203,117 square miles. (French zone, 415,000 sq.km. ; Spanish zone, 104,600 sq.km. ; international zone of Tangier, 38o sq.km.) Physical the point of view of structure and relief, one may distinguish three great divisions; (I) the coastal massifs which border the Mediterranean, separated from the Atlas system by the depression of the Sbu and its right bank affluents; (2) the plains and plateaux of western Morocco; (3) the Atlas and its various chains towards the Sahara.
) The coastal massifs, almost unknown until recent years, have now been explored; they correspond, from the political point of view, with the zone of Spanish influence. They comprise three regions, the Jebela in the west, the Rif in the centre, and the Garet on the east. The western portion of the coastal massifs, as far as the valley of Wad Nkur and the Bay of Alhucemas, belongs to the Alpine fold system; crystalline and Palaeozoic rocks outcrop on the coast; then comes a much folded axial zone, made up chiefly of Liassic and Nummulitic limestones; finally there is a frontal zone of southward-directed overfolds which constitute the Pre-Rif. The chains are arranged in an arc of a circle, and form the counterpart of the Betic Cordillera (Sierra Nevada), to which they are related geologically in spite of the break at the Straits of Gibraltar. The higher summits lie between Chechaouen and the valley of the Nkur (Jebel-Tiziren, 2,500 metres). The country is dissected by deep ravines which give it, in places, a chaotic aspect. The slopes towards the Mediterranean are sharp, and the rivers rapid. The height of the chains, added to their exposure to the westerly wind, produces a marked con trast between the Jebela, moister and more fertile, and the Rif, where the vegetation is scantier. The coast, as usual in the Medi
terranean, is mountainous and cut into arc-shaped bays; on the Straits of Gibraltar are Tangier, Ksar-es-Serir and Ceuta; be tween Ceuta and the Nkur lie the bays of Tetuan, of Badis (Peron de Velez) and of Alhucemas. To the east of Wad Nkur the folds are well marked and the structure of the country much more simple ; the dryness increases, and in the Garet the steppe reaches nearly to the coast. To the east of Cape Tres-Forcas lies the Bay of Melilla, near to which stretches the sebkha of Bou Erg, then comes the bay sheltered by the Cap de l'Eau, beyond which lie the Zaffarine islands, not far from the mouth of the Muluya.
(2) The plains and plateaux of western Morocco stretch from the Atlantic to the foot of the Atlas. They include two different regions : El Gharb and El Huz, or the ancient kingdoms of Fez and Marrakesh. El Gharb has a varied relief, the influence of the coastal massifs extending as far as Fez and the massifs of Zarhun and Zalagh; the hills of El Gharb frame the alluvial plains of the Lukkos and the Sbu, on the estuary of which stand the ports of Larache and Mehedia respectively. The great east to west depression which links Algeria and Morocco by Ujda, Taza, Fez and Meknes, and which separates the coastal massifs from the Atlas, opens on the Atlantic by the plain of the Sbu; it is the corridor of Taza, an important feature of the geography of Morocco. The coast is flat, bordered with dunes and marshes. The Sbu, rising in mid-Atlas under the name of Wad Guigo, receives near Fez the Innauen, which brings it the waters of the corridor of Taza ; then the Werra, which drains the southern Slope of the coastal massif, lastly the Wad Mikkes, Wad Rdom and Wad Beht, left bank affluents. In its lower course the Sbu meanders and spreads among the marshes or merdjas; it has an average discharge of 4o cubic metres (minimum 13 cubic metres) ; it is tidal as far up as Kenitra and more or less navigable to Mechra-bel-Ksiri. The triangular stretch of country between the Atlantic coast from Rabat to Cape Guir and the Atlas consti tuted the Moroccan meseta, the subsoil of which is formed of anciently folded Archaean and Palaeozoic rocks incompletely covered by thin layers of Secondary and Tertiary age. The ancient rocks in the form of dissected schists and granitic bosses, dominate the region of the Zaer and of the Zemmour, which stretches along the left bank of the Sbu between Meknes and Rabat, the same structure continues farther east in the plateau of Ulmes and in the region of the ZaIan as far as the upper valley of the Umm er Rbica. The retreat of the sea having taken place in successive stages, more and more ancient terraces are found as one penetrates the interior, as the altitude increases from 100-150 metres to 600-700 metres. The coastal plain (country of the Shawuja, of the Dukkala and of the Abda), 6o to 8o km.