MOROCCO
(Kingdom of Morocco)

Capital: Rabat
Currency: Moroccan dirham (MAD)
Population: 33,0 million people
Area: 710 850 sq.km.
IRCHP: 123 (2015)

GEOGRAPHY

Morocco, the highland of the western part of North Africa which is directly through the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. The traditional area of indigenous people nowadays collectively known as berbers (the self-name Imazigkhen, only, Amazigsky), Morocco is exposed to broad migration and for a long time is the location of city communities which were originally populated with the people outside the region. Under control to Carthage from early age, the region was later the most western province of the Roman Empire. After the Arab gaining the end of the 7th century, wider area of North Africa became known as Maghreb (Arab: "West"), and most of her people accepted Islam. The subsequent Moroccan kingdoms had political influence which stretched out of borders of coastal areas, and in the 11th century the first radical dynasty Amazigov of North Africa, Almoravida, received control over the empire stretching from the Andalusian (southern) Spain to parts of Africa to the south from the Sahara. Attempts of Europeans to establish constant support in Morocco since the end of the 15th century were substantially beaten off, but later the country became a subject of policy of the Great power in the 19th century. In 1912 Morocco was created by protectorate of France, but in 1956 it found independence. Today it is the only monarchy in North Africa.

SOCIETY

Though the country is quickly modernized and has the high standard of living, it saves the most part of the ancient architecture and even more traditional traditions. The largest city of Morocco and the main port of the Atlantic Ocean is Casablanca, industrial and shopping center. The capital, Rabat, is near the North on the Atlantic coast. Other seaports include Tangier, the Strait of Gibraltar, Agadir, the Atlantic Ocean and Al-Hoseyma, the Mediterranean Sea. They say that in the city of Fes there are best markets or the markets under the open sky in all North Africa. Picturesque and fertile, Morocco well deserves a praise of the native son, the medieval traveler Ibn Balush who wrote that "it is the best countries because in it there are a lot of fruits, and flowing water and nutritious food are never exhausted".

NATURE

Morocco borders on Algeria in the east and the southeast, on Western Sahara in the south, on the Atlantic Ocean in the West and on the Mediterranean Sea in the north. It is the only African country with coastal impact both on the Atlantic Ocean, and on the Mediterranean Sea. Its area, except for the territory of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco is a little more, than in the State of California. Two small Spanish enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, are located on the northern coast of the country. In lowlands at the coast the summer heat decreases cool onshore breezes. Average daytime summer temperature in the coastal cities fluctuates from 64 to 82 °F (from 18 to 28 °C).