Marrakech - The Ocre City

Marrakech is called the Ocre city thanks to the red colour of its buildings. By local law nobody is allowed to wash in other colour. The city has a strategic position in south of Morocco. Only two hours drive via the highway to Casablanca the industrial capital of the country and three hours to Rabat the official capital of Morocco. With the Atlantic Ocean only two hours drive toward the west where you can enjoy swimming the whole year round at Essawira the nearest beach – a moderate temperature town. At 35 kilometres south of the city there is the high Atlas mountain range covered with snow from November to May every year. There is a ski resort at 80 kilometres from the city. The Sahara with sand dunes is at about 8 hours drive south of Marrakech.

Marrakech is the unique ‘Palm Grove’ city with beautiful views of the Atlas Mountains. The first palm trees were planted when the city was founded in the 11th century by the Almoravide dynasty. These nomadic people had the nostalgia to the palm trees in the Saharan oasis they left behind them. They decided to create the same atmosphere by planting some of the palm trees. The 13,000 hectares Palm Grove has over 150,000 palm trees. They are protected trees by local law and nobody is allowed to cut any tree for which you pay a fine.

The weather here is quite different during summer 35-48 °C during the day and 28-35 °C at night during July and August, during winter 14-24 °C in the day and -5-6 °C at night from December to February.

The special weather is attracting lot of local and foreigners to come to live in the city. A city that is trendy that offers pure luxury plus a lot of constructions and developments whether real estate or commercial. The price of the square meter has risen up to 10 or 15 times more according to the districts.

With total population today over 1 million inhabitants, 700,000 are living in the new city founded by the French protectorate between 1912 and 1956. 300,000 live in the Medina which is the oldest town founded in the 11th century. There are 2 different worlds living together without conflicts but cohabitation and tolerance.

In the new city the main activity is tourism, administration and industry (mainly food industry of olive oil, canned olives, vegetables, fruits, marmalade, orange juice etc) that are partially shipped to Europe.

In Medina people remain manual and the main economic activity is handicraft. Here thousands of qualified and expert artisan and artists are manufacturing leather in the tanneries but also metal, wood, pottery, silver, copper etc., in the winding alleys of the old souks (markets) of the old city. The Moroccan art is also proud of the amazing labour of the women that are experts in embroidery, weaving carpets using wool and silk.

Famous western designers were so impressed by the quality and the cheap labour that they decided to buy a second house to be closer to order very complicated orders for their fashion exhibitions and also to keep close to the country of roses, spices and essences to extract new perfumes.

So why not visit Marrakech in the near future and discover the Ocre City.




By Mohammed Bennis
World Properties and Land - Marrakech