Casablanca

Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco and the country's principal port and economic centre. It lies on the Atlantic coast of the Chaouia plain in the north-west of the country, and its harbour has shaped the city's growth since the nineteenth century. Its urban area had about 3.22 million people in 2024, and the wider Greater Casablanca area had over 4.27 million, which makes it the most populous city in the African Maghreb region. Its importance rests on port activity, industrial capacity, banking and trade, and on its role as the commercial gateway between North Africa and Europe.

The city's development has been marked by distinct phases: a small Berber and later Portuguese-era port called Anfa, a nineteenth-century trade boom in wool and grain, and a rapid transformation under the French protectorate, when planners laid out broad boulevards beside an older Arab town. Casablanca also featured in the Second World War as the site of a 1943 Allied conference, and its population expanded sharply after independence. Sources differ on some early dates and economic shares, and those points are noted where relevant.

The article covers the city's names and location, its early and colonial history, its port and urban planning, its population and districts, its architectural heritage including the Art Deco quarters and the Hassan II Mosque, its industrial and financial economy, transport links, and the environmental and housing challenges it faces today.

Name, location and administrative status

Location and physical setting

Casablanca lies on Morocco's Atlantic coast, in the west-central part of the country, on the Chaouia plain. The Chaouia is a plain and historical and ethno-geographical region of Morocco, and it is bounded by the Oum er-Rbi' River to its southwest, the Cherrate River to its northeast, the plain of Tadla to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the northwest. The region covers a land area of nearly 14 000 km2. Historically, the plain supplied the coastal trading towns: wheat and barley were exported in years of abundance from Casablanca, Fédala or Azemmour.

The city's elevation range is listed as 0 to 150 m (0 to 492 ft), so most of the built-up area sits on low coastal ground. Single-point elevation readings for the city centre are lower still, which is one reason the figures in reference works should be read as ranges rather than fixed heights.

Area and population measures

The city proper is usually given as about 380 square kilometres. Reference works also give a metropolitan area of about 1,100 square kilometres, while the former Grand Casablanca region, which existed from 1997 to 2015, covered 1,117 km2 (431 sq mi). The differences reflect definitional choices: municipal boundaries, the urban fabric, the metropolitan zone and an administrative region that no longer exists in its old form all measure different things.

Population figures follow the same logic. The 2024 census recorded the Casablanca prefecture at 3,218,036, which corresponds to the city's legal population. The wider Greater Casablanca area, by contrast, is given as over 4.27 million. The urban-area figures in some infoboxes differ from those in the main text, so readers should check which definition a given number uses.

Regional status

Administratively, the city is the capital of the Casablanca-Settat region. Casablanca-Settat is one of the twelve administrative regions of Morocco. It was formed in September 2015 by merging Grand Casablanca with the provinces of El Jadida and Sidi Bennour in Doukkala-Abda region and the provinces of Benslimane, Berrechid and Settat in Chaouia-Ouardigha region. It covers an area of 20,166 km2 and is the most populous region in Morocco with a recorded population of 7,688,967 in the 2024 Moroccan census, and roughly three quarters of that population lives in urban areas.

Political capital and economic centre

Casablanca and Rabat hold different kinds of standing. Rabat is the seat of national government: it hosts the royal palace, the parliament, the ministries and the embassies. Casablanca's standing is economic. Casablanca is considered the economic and business center of Morocco, although the national political capital is Rabat. The leading Moroccan companies and many international corporations have their headquarters and main industrial facilities in Casablanca. The city's port and its concentration of economic activity give it its commercial weight, but this is a descriptive role rather than a constitutional one.

The division has a colonial origin. Sources give different dates for when Rabat's administrative role was fixed. One account says Resident-General Hubert Lyautey made the crucial decision to locate the Protectorate's administration in Rabat rather than Tangier, Casablanca, or Fes. Another dates Rabat's selection as administrative capital to 1912, the same year the French protectorate began, and notes that Rabat has served as the official seat of government since the French Protectorate period, and it kept that role after independence in 1956. The choice of Rabat over Casablanca was therefore a deliberate decision to separate the seat of government from the commercial city, a pattern that continued after Morocco regained independence.

Origins of the name

The English and Spanish form "Casablanca" is usually traced to Iberian usage. Dictionary etymologies describe the Spanish name as a calque of the Portuguese Casa Branca, and both mean "white house" in Spanish. The Portuguese link is the best-documented step. After Portuguese forces destroyed the Berber settlement of Anfa in 1468, they returned about half a century later to rebuild the town and renamed it 'Casa Branca'. A village that formed around their fortress, built on the ruins in 1515, was called "Casa Branca", meaning "White House" in Portuguese. Some accounts reverse the order, treating the Portuguese phrase as a rendering of an Arabic one, so the direction of borrowing is not settled in every source.

The reason for the name itself is less certain. The English Wikipedia article notes that the origins of the name "Casablanca" are unclear, although several theories have been suggested. One theory points to a landmark on the coast: near the ruins of Anfa there appears to have been a whitewashed structure, possibly a Sufi zawiya, that acted as a landmark to sailors. A fifteenth-century Portuguese explorer described a white structure on a promontory used by mariners as a landmark to pinpoint Anfa, and this was referred to in Portuguese as Casabranca, which in time turned into the Spanish Casablanca. Local historians have suggested that a mansion on the coast, Dar Khalifa, may be the original "white house" that gives Casablanca its name. Other explanations have been rejected. Ibn Khaldun ascribed the name to the Anfaça, a branch of the Awraba tribe, but André Adam refuted this claim due to the absence of the third syllable. A local legend instead credits the Sufi saint and merchant Allal al-Qairawani, who supposedly came from Tunisia, and his wife Lalla al-Baiḍāʾ (White Lady).

The Arabic name and local usage

The Arabic name, ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, means the same thing. It is traditionally tied to the post-1755 rebuilding of the town. After Anfa was destroyed in the 1755 earthquake, Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah rebuilt the city and constructed the port. He named the city "ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ", and this is a literal translation of Casablanca into Arabic. Sources differ on the details. The infobox for the article gives the reconstruction as 1756 under Mohammed III, while another account gives 1770 under the same sultan, so the chronology should be read with caution.

In everyday speech the Arabic form changed. In vernacular use it was pronounced "Dar al-Baiḍā", and in present-day Moroccan Arabic people say d-Dār l-Biḍā. Many residents and outsiders also use the short nickname Casa. During the French protectorate the Spanish form persisted: French forces occupied the city in 1907 and adopted the Spanish name, Casablanca.

Demonyms

Residents are described by several demonyms. The English form is Casablancan, and the French form is Casablancais. Kazāwi (كازاوي) and Biḍāwi (بيضاوي) are the Arabic-derived forms. Kazāwi appears to be built on the informal local name Kaẓa, which is given as a local informal name for the city, although no source states this link explicitly. Biḍāwi derives from the Arabic word for white. Bayda means white in its feminine form, and informal usage applies the term to people from Dar el Bayda, with casawi used in some areas as a counterpart. Spellings vary across sources, and the forum-based usage notes are informal rather than authoritative.

Physical setting and climate

Casablanca stands on a low coastal plain, and one overview describes the ground as a flat limestone platform with no major relief inside the city. Casablanca sits on a low limestone coastal plain with no significant topographic features within the city. A weather-station record gives the site's elevation as about 203 feet (62 metres), which places the city close to sea level rather than on the rising ground found further inland. The western shoreline runs toward the Ain Diab corniche, where the Atlantic meets the city directly. Swell from distant storms reaches this coast, and the same waves that make bathing hazardous support surf breaks along the seafront. The same Atlantic swell that makes swimming tricky is what makes the surfing worthwhile.

The climate is Mediterranean in character, shaped by the ocean and by the Canary Current. Sources agree on the broad pattern but differ on the label. The most common classification is the Köppen subtype Csa: Casablanca features a Mediterranean climate under the Köppen climate classification, specifically Csa. A single source instead places the city in BSh, a steppe category, and reports an annual precipitation of approximately 324 mm. The cool current moderates the summer heat, and one overview notes that the cool Canary Current keeps coastal summer temperatures below 30°C despite the city's latitude. Annual rainfall estimates range from about 270 mm to around 410 mm depending on the source and period. Rain concentrates in the winter months, while summer is nearly dry: one source records the monthly numbers dropping as low as 0mm (0") in both July and August.

Groundwater and surface drainage are shaped by this flat, low-lying terrain. The coastal Chaouia aquifer, which is 1200 km2 in extent and lies between Casablanca and Azemmour, has been drawn on intensively for irrigation since the 1970s. Heavy pumping has lowered water levels and allowed salt water to move inland, and one study reports substantial mineralization extending nearly 2 kilometers inland from the coast. Because the land is flat, storm runoff moves slowly. One overview warns that heavy rain (events of 40–60 mm in a few hours) can overwhelm the stormwater system, flooding streets and low-lying neighborhoods. Flooding along the wider Casablanca–Mohammedia coast is concentrated at high tides, and one modelling study estimates that the floodable area for all of Casablanca-Mohammedia's coastline (109 km2) is estimated to be ~ 23.5 km2, of which ~ 13.9 km2 is urban. These figures bear directly on construction siting, drainage design and the management of coastal aquifers and groundwater supplies.

The coast is also eroding, and this has shaped how engineers protect it. Studies of the Casablanca–Mohammedia shoreline describe narrowing of the sandy beaches and retreat of rock cliffs, and the authors link this to the strength of wave action, which human activity has intensified. Protective structures are therefore a standard part of the waterfront. Modelling of sea-level rise and storm events suggests that defended shores behave differently from natural ones: run-up contributes 45–60% in structure defense areas against ~ 35% in natural areas of the total water level during energetic events. Engineering choices along the corniche therefore have to account for wave run-up as well as for erosion of the shore itself, and for the salt-laden wind that comes straight off the ocean and affects the built fabric.

Ancient and medieval Anfa

Before the Portuguese-era town of Casa Branca, the site was known as Anfa, a Berber name. Its meaning is not settled: one source glosses it as "the top", while another describes it as "little hill".

The start date of settlement is also disputed. One reference places the Berber foundation by about the 10th century BC, while another dates it by at least the seventh century BC. Britannica takes a later view, describing an Amazigh (Berber) village called Anfa on the site in the 12th century and noting that the origin of the town is not known. The year 1515 is often confused with the origin of Anfa, but it marks a later event: the Portuguese returned and built a new town, Casa Branca.

The Phoenician and Roman layer rests on thinner evidence. Standard accounts state that the site was used as a port by the Phoenicians and later by the Romans. Archaeological support is more cautious: early traces of settlement in Casablanca point to possible Phoenician and Roman presences. Some historians go further and suggest that the Roman frontier reached present-day Casablanca, known then as Anfa, which had been settled by the Romans as a port. Dates for the Roman port are inconsistent. One account places its founding in 15 BC, while a timeline lists the port as created by Romans in the 1st century CE under the name Anfus. The Roman-era link is also tied to the purple dye trade and to Juba II, whose expedition toward the Canary Islands probably departed from Anfa. These connections are inferred rather than fully documented. The description of Anfa as a Roman city comes largely from the sixteenth-century writer Leo Africanus, who defined Anfa as a Roman city in his Description of Africa, so it reflects a later written attribution rather than excavated evidence.

In the medieval period, Anfa is more securely documented. It became an independent kingdom ruled by Barghawata from 744 CE until it was conquered by the Almoravids in 1068. Leo Africanus described it as the most "prosperous city on the Atlantic Coast because of its fertile land." Political control shifted later: the Almohad ruler Abd al-Mu'min drove the Barghawata out of Tamasna in 1149, and replaced them with Bedouin Arab tribes, notably Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym. Under the Marinids, from the 14th century, Anfa rose in importance as a port, and in the early 15th century the settlement regained its independence. That independence had a cost, since the town emerged as a safe harbour for pirates and privateers, leading to it being targeted by the Portuguese.

The Portuguese campaign of 1468 ended this phase. Anfa was destroyed by the Portuguese in 1468, and the Portuguese presented the attack as a response to piracy from the port. Their later fortified settlement was built on the ruins, and its name, Casa Branca, became the basis for the modern city's name.

Early modern reconstruction and the port revival

Casablanca's early modern history was marked by destruction, abandonment and a slow rebuilding. Portuguese control of the site ended in 1755, when an earthquake destroyed the settlement and the Portuguese withdrew, ending a period in which the town had served as an outpost of their empire. With the secession of Portugal in 1640, Casablanca again became a Portuguese outpost until 1755 AD, when it was destroyed by an earthquake and the Portuguese abandoned it.

The rebuilding is associated with Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah, known as Mohammed III. The infobox of the main English encyclopedia entry gives Reconstructed: 1756 and names Mohammed III as founder. Other accounts date the work later. One timeline places the rebuilding of the city walls around 1770, and another puts the founding of the town and medina in 1770, so the chronology of the reconstruction is not settled in the sources. The reconstruction drew on outside expertise: it was rebuilt by Sultan Muhammad III of Morocco, who employed European architects, and it was renamed Ad-dār al-Bayḍā, and built with the aid of Spaniards, the new town was given its Spanish and Arabic names.

Commerce through the harbour resumed in 1830, which is the point from which the town's renewed trading life is usually dated. Port re-opens to commerce is the entry in one timeline for that year, and another account states that trading recommenced from the port in 1830.

The growth that followed depended on relations with foreign merchants. A protégé system allowed Moroccans who were under the protection of European powers to operate largely outside the authority of the Makhzen, the state apparatus of the sultanate, and this gave a commercial class in the port room to expand. Casablanca grew due to the protégé system, through which Moroccans protected by European powers became independent of the Makhzen. Throughout the nineteenth century the town's expansion was closely tied to its European partners. In the 19th century, Casablanca grew through trade with Europe, until the French conquest at the start of the 20th century.

Regular sea links with the Mediterranean followed, and French companies were central to them. The Paquet company, founded in 1863, ran services from Marseille and Port-Vendres to Casablanca, which connected the port to the French Mediterranean ports and the wider European market. A traditional steamship company founded in 1863 linked Marseilles and Port Vendres with Casablanca.

Before the later nineteenth century, the town remained a relatively small port. Its importance came from the links it formed with European merchants and shipping firms rather than from a large inland population, and those links set up the commercial expansion that followed in the next decades.

Nineteenth-century wool trade and population growth

Over the course of the nineteenth century the town's economy reoriented toward export. Wool from the Chaouia plain found a large buyer in Britain's expanding textile manufacturing, and the cargoes it generated brought more shipping to the anchorage. The trade had a longer prehistory. A revolt in Chaouia closed local ports in 1794, and when the port reopened around 1831 its main outbound goods were hides, grain and wool, with Spain as an important grain market before the closure.

The exchange ran in both directions. British merchants who paid for Moroccan wool brought gunpowder tea back in return. The tea was not an isolated luxury: it became a key ingredient in Maghrebi mint tea, the drink now most associated with Moroccan hospitality. Tea had reached North Africa through British commerce in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in Morocco its consumption soon became a marker of prestige. The commodity flow therefore carried consumer habits as well as goods, tying Casablanca to the wider Atlantic economy.

Population growth followed the commercial expansion, though the figures vary by source. Estimates for the 1860s range from about 4,000 to 5,000 residents, and estimates for the late 1880s range from about 9,000 to 10,000. Growth was not only a matter of merchants: Jewish merchants were moving from the interior toward coastal cities during the century, and Casablanca was among the ports they reached. Even so, the town remained small by the standards of later decades, with a population of only several thousand at the close of the century.

The most significant legacy of this period was institutional rather than demographic. The merchant networks, shipping links and export habits formed in these decades gave the port its mercantile character, which the French protectorate later expanded into a major modern port and financial centre. The population figures and the chronology of the port's early development should be read together with the broader history of trade and the port's relations with Britain.

French protectorate and port construction

The French hold on Casablanca began with a commercial concession before it rested on a treaty. The Algeciras Conference of 1906 confirmed French predominance in Morocco and gave the French company Compagnie Marocaine the right to build modern ports at Casablanca and Safi. The company's first protected basin, of about a dozen hectares, was completed in 1906, according to the port authority ANP. Sources disagree on when the work began: some give 1906, while another gives 2 May 1907. Military pressure accompanied the construction. An attack on the company's Decauville railway in 1907 became the pretext for a French bombardment of the city in August of that year, which damaged much of the old medina and the Jewish quarter.

Formal control came with the Treaty of Fez, signed on 30 March 1912 by Sultan Abd al-Hafid and the French diplomat Eugène Regnault. The sultan signed under duress. The treaty left the sultan on the throne but gave the French Resident-General absolute authority over external and internal affairs, and it made Hubert Lyautey the first holder of that post. The protectorate lasted until the Franco-Moroccan Joint Declaration of 2 March 1956. Under this arrangement, Rabat became the political capital, while Casablanca became France's economic centre in Morocco. The division of roles between the two cities dates from these years.

Port works continued after the treaty. A second basin of about 100 hectares was built in 1913, and the port's facilities were later extended in stages, with a commercial pier commissioned in 1932. The harbour was already the largest in the kingdom before the protectorate. By 1906, according to one estimate, Casablanca had overtaken Tangier in total trade volume, at roughly 14 million gold francs. French rule consolidated this lead by concentrating shipping, customs and commercial investment at the harbour, and the port became the main outlet for Morocco's exports, particularly phosphates and agricultural goods. This role drew merchants, labourers and administrators from other parts of the country and from Europe. The city's population rose quickly as a result, partly because of European immigration.

Estimates of the city's size in this period vary considerably, and the sources do not agree on the exact figures for the population or for the timing of key port milestones. The account here follows the dates given by the port authority where they are available, and it notes the variations where they matter. The protectorate's commercial policy also shaped later developments, including the port's expansion into the container and bulk terminals of the late twentieth century, which are discussed in the sections on transport and industry.

French urban planning and the colonial city

Under the protectorate, the redesign of Casablanca was entrusted to a French architect and planner, Henri Prost, who had previously worked in Istanbul and was recruited by Resident-General Hubert Lyautey. Lyautey favoured preserving historic Moroccan cities while applying the latest planning techniques, and he recruited Prost for the task. Sources do not agree on the chronology. One gives 1915 as the year of the first development plan, another refers to a radio-concentric plan from 1914, and a third dates the master plan's preparation to 1917 to 1922.

The layout followed a radio-concentric pattern. Authorities laid out major boulevards around the medina to control land speculation and disorderly sprawl. The plan also gave prominence to the motor car, with large, clearly ranked axes and spacious blocks for ambitious buildings. A north–south axis running from the medina held an administrative quarter and a large park, while the harbour formed the plan's central symbol of colonial enterprise. Mohammed V Square, where barracks had stood, was laid out under the plan in 1916 and became the heart of the expanding European city. Lyautey's Nancy background also shaped the design, as the eighteenth-century Place Stanislas in Nancy served as an inspiration for Prost's urban design.

The scheme separated Moroccan and European life. Prost's plan divided the city into a ville indigène for Moroccans and a ville nouvelle for Europeans spreading out to the east. Historians describe Casablanca as a laboratory in which the medina and the European city were sharply divided and largely disconnected from each other. The French-built town was laid out in a semicircle just outside the medina walls. One exception was the Habous district, built in response to a sudden influx of Moroccan migrants, which was unusual in that the medina was not conserved and a new district was built for Moroccans instead.

The plan did not contain the population movement it was meant to manage. Prost regarded the medina between the port and the European city as unsuitable for expansion, and because it was enclosed by its walls, it could no longer act as a refuge for newcomers. Within a few years, shantytowns, known as bidonvilles, appeared in the 1920s and 1930s, when land speculation was intense. The term originally described a barrack district built from salvaged materials such as oil drums and corrugated iron. These settlements disrupted the order of Prost's plan.

Land speculation accompanied the redesign from the outset. After an intense press campaign in Europe drew attention to the new port city, investors and developers quickly tried to secure land for property ventures. An earlier expansion plan drawn up in 1912 by the surveyor Albert Tardif proposed a garden suburb to the south. The resulting street pattern and parcel boundaries shaped the city's growth for decades.

The plan was widely admired at the time. Casablanca was praised as a success story for applying the principles of urbanism, and Prost's work became a reference for urban planning and development in France after the First World War. Its legacy is, however, also one of segregation: the ordered boulevards and the European quarter stood alongside a crowded Moroccan population with limited space to expand.

Demographic structure of the colonial period

The population of Casablanca grew quickly after the French protectorate began in 1912. One source puts the city at about 40,000 in 1914, and another puts it at 260,000 in 1936, a figure that the historian Jean-Louis Cohen compares with the size of Algiers or Bordeaux at the time. Figures for the early years are less firm than those from the censuses that followed, and some popular chronologies give Europeans a much larger share of the 1914 population than later estimates suggest.

The European share fell as the city grew. Europeans made up about a third of residents in 1936, and by 1952 they were about a fifth of the population, or roughly 133,000 people. The 1952 census counted about 477,500 Muslims in the city. Adding the European and Jewish totals gives a figure close to the 680,000 to 682,000 usually cited for the city's total population that year, so the three groups together account for almost all residents. Much of this growth came from migration by Moroccans from the countryside, which is covered in the section on post-independence growth.

The Jewish population was one of the largest in the country. Estimates put it at about 75,000 in 1952, or roughly a tenth of residents, and the city had become the largest Jewish community in Morocco by the 1930s. Sources disagree on how many of these people were Moroccan Jews. One account says about a third were Moroccan, but Cohen's figures show that foreign-national Jews were a minority of the city's Jewish population, and the 1960 census-based figures place roughly 71,000 Jews in Casablanca with about 20,000 foreign nationals among the wider Jewish population of Morocco. The city's Jewish community was also linked to the Mellah, the historic Jewish quarter south of the medina, where the poorest families increasingly lived as wealthier families moved to apartments and villas.

These communities changed sharply after 1956. Emigration to Israel was organised through the Zionist body Cadima, which oversaw the migration of roughly 90,000 Moroccan Jews from 1949 to 1956, and emigration continued in the years that followed. The Jewish population of Casablanca fell from its peak of around 100,000 in the mid-1950s to a much smaller community, and the country's Jewish population dropped from about 218,000 in 1952 to roughly 2,500 by 2020. The European population also declined after independence, and the Casablanca-born and expatriate communities that remained were much smaller than in the colonial period. The decline of these groups, along with rapid migration from rural areas, reshaped the city's social and urban landscape in the decades after 1956.

Second World War and the 1943 Casablanca Conference

Vichy port and refugee gateway

In the wake of the June 1940 armistice, which split France in two, French Morocco found itself under the rule of the Vichy government. Berlin pressed for a foothold there: as early as July 1940, Hitler requested construction of eight airfields near Casablanca in the hope of using the Moroccan city as a staging point for a German assault on the United States. Incensed by the German demand, Vichy rejected it. The harbour's other wartime function was humanitarian. It was the largest Atlantic port in Africa and, with Lisbon, it transformed into a jumping-off point for North America, South America, and the Caribbean early in the war. Most refugees who ended up stranded in the city were Jewish, fleeing Nazi persecution across Europe.

Operation Torch and the naval battle

The Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942 turned the port into a battlefield. The Naval Battle of Casablanca was a series of naval engagements fought between American ships covering the invasion of North Africa and Vichy French ships defending the neutrality of French Morocco, fought between 8 and 16 November 1942, and it ended in an American victory. French shore batteries and warships sortied from Casablanca's harbor to engage the American fleet. Once the city fell, Patton initially established his headquarters in the city, and American military presence grew there. The city then settled into a role as a major rear-area hub for Allied operations across North Africa and later into southern Europe.

The Anfa Conference of January 1943

The conference is most often dated to 14–24 January 1943, and it was held at the Anfa Hotel, which is why it is also called the Anfa Conference. Accompanied by the French generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud, the two leaders and the Combined Chiefs of Staff mapped out the grand strategy for both the European and the Pacific theaters. Soviet premier Joseph Stalin was invited but unable to attend because of the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad. Sultan Muhammad V also attended, but they played minor roles and were not part of the military planning.

The decisions reached there had lasting effects. The conferees agreed to pursue military operations in Sicily, to continue the heavy bombing offensive against Germany, and to establish a combined staff in London to plan a large invasion of France across the English Channel. Churchill's push for Sicily was partly intended to divert American attention from opening a second front in France in 1943. The leaders also endorsed an unconditional surrender policy, which they defined as "the total elimination of German and Japanese war power." Efforts to bring the two rival French generals together under one leadership largely failed due to the fundamental disagreements between the two French leaders about post-war France and their respective roles. Secrecy was strict: Roosevelt and Churchill excluded the press from the conference—partly for safety reasons and partly to allow them to work without scrutiny of their every move.

Wartime reputation and the film

The city's international image was shaped as much by fiction as by these events. The name evokes the Hollywood film, yet the pivotal role of the North African city as a haven for refugees and a strategic role during the conflict years is not well known. The film's story was loosely drawn from real refugee experiences in the city, but its characters and plot are fictional, and the historical events above should not be read as its plot. A notable anecdote links the two worlds: just weeks before the conference, on New Year's Eve, Roosevelt raised his glass to "the United States of America and United Nations Victory"; that same evening he enjoyed a private screening of Casablanca at the White House.

Growth after independence and metropolitan expansion

Casablanca kept growing rapidly after Morocco became independent in 1956, continuing the expansion that had begun under the protectorate. Reference timelines give the city about 682,000 residents in 1951, 967,000 in 1960 (measured as an urban agglomeration), and 1,371,330 for the city and 1,753,400 for the urban agglomeration in 1973. Because the 1960 and 1973 figures use different definitions, they show the trend more reliably than they show exact year-on-year change. Earlier demographic work estimates that the city had about 25,000 inhabitants when the French arrived in 1907, and that by independence it was home to at least 900,000 people. Between 1960 and 1994 the population multiplied fourfold, and the largest absolute increase came during the independence period itself.

Migration from the countryside was the main engine of this growth. A census taken during the protectorate found that only about 8 per cent of residents had been born in Casablanca, while roughly 75 per cent had come from rural areas. Later analyses attribute the continuing expansion to both rural migration and international migrants, many of whom are not fully captured in official statistics. Inflows of this size outpaced the supply of housing, water, transport and schools, which placed heavy pressure on the infrastructure of the city and fed the growth of informal settlements on its edges. The city's attraction also reflected its position as the main centre of the labour market in the country.

The metropolitan figures remain difficult to pin down, because sources use different definitions. The Casablanca article gives the urban area as about 3.22 million, and over 4.27 million in Greater Casablanca. Its own infobox, however, lists a larger urban figure of 3,950,000, and the regional article dates the 4.27 million figure to the 2014 census rather than to 2024. Readers should therefore treat the metropolitan total as a range that depends on how the urban boundary is drawn.

Recent census tables show that growth has moved outward from the historic core. The prefecture of Casablanca recorded 3,359,818 in the 2014 census and 3,218,036 in the 2024 census, while the wider region rose from 6,861,739 to 7,688,967 over the same decade. The city proper therefore lost population during the decade while its surrounding region gained it, which indicates that new residents settled in peripheral districts and suburbs. The southwestern district of Hay Hassani illustrates this pattern, with 537,509 inhabitants as of the 2024 Moroccan census. In practical terms, much of the metropolitan area's population now lives beyond the municipal boundary, which complicates planning, service delivery and the statistical comparison of city and region.

Urban structure and principal districts

Casablanca's layout reflects two phases of growth: an older core beside the port, and a planned extension built during the French protectorate. Until the arrival of the French, most of Casablanca lay within the walls of the old Medina. The old medina and the historic Arab town still lie beside the harbour, and parts of their original walls survive. Later districts were laid out around them in the colonial-era plan.

The commercial core sits where the two phases meet. Muḥammad V Square, near the gateway of the old medina, and United Nations Square are the business and administrative centres of the town, where banks, hotels, and large modern shops are located. Mohammed V Square has a more official character. One guide describes it as the administrative center of the city, as it brings together plenty of buildings erected after the First World War including the Consulate of France, the courthouse, the prefecture, the central post office, and the bank of Morocco. United Nations Square functions as a junction. It serves as a major transport hub, a route across the city, and a crossroads from which radiate some of the city's most important boulevards. Mohammed V Avenue is one of the main arteries of Casablanca's new city.

West of the centre, Maarif is one of the city's 16 arrondissements. As of 2024, it had 139,669 inhabitants. The district contains the Twin Center, a complex of shops, offices, and a five-star hotel, and it is also home to the Mohammed V stadium which holds room for 44'000 spectators. Its restaurants, shops and rooftop bars make it a popular area for evening life.

Ain Diab is the city's coastal leisure district. The coastal suburb is traversed by the 3km-long Corniche Boulevard, offering expansive views along the Atlantic. Beaches and beach clubs draw visitors by day, while the nightclubs and restaurants open up along the boardwalk and the Corniche becomes a central hub of Casablanca's nightlife. The district was once home to a large shantytown, which was redeveloped, and the area is now among the city's most affluent. Its western part includes the hill of Anfa, where there are blocks of luxury villas surrounded by forested parks.

Hay Hassani shows the opposite pattern: growth at the edge of the city. It lies in the southwest of the city, and the district covers an area of 25.91 square kilometres (10 square miles) and as of the 2024 Moroccan census had 537,509 inhabitants. Census figures for the district rose from 235,134 in 1994 to 323,944 in 2004 and 468,542 in 2014, showing how fast the outer districts expanded during the period of rapid urbanization. A municipal portal gives a density of 11 472 habitants au Km2 bien en dessous de la densité de Casablanca qui est de 15 263 hab au Km2, which is lower than the city-wide figure, in line with its suburban character.

Art Deco architecture and World Heritage recognition

Casablanca's central districts contain a large concentration of Art Deco buildings, which sit on the same streets as Art Nouveau, neo-Moorish and neoclassical work. Many buildings in Art Nouveau and Art Deco were designed in the ville nouvelle through the 1930s by architects such as Marius Boyer. The style reached Morocco after it had emerged in France, where it appeared just before World War I. Its spread in the city is tied to the French protectorate's planned new town, which was built largely between the wars.

The buildings combine European forms with local craft. A 2013 UNESCO nomination file describes how Art Deco's geometric forms combine with traditional motifs and techniques. The result is often called architecture mauresque, which blends the facades of French Art Deco with Islamic arches and tile work. Some landmarks show this clearly. The Sacred Heart Cathedral, completed in 1930, mixes Gothic and Art Deco styles with Islamic touches, and its architect was Paul Tournon. The Hotel Lincoln, designed by Hubert Bride and one of the first structures the French built during the occupation, is a notable example of the building type that defined the period. Its brick construction, however, made it less durable than the reinforced concrete used elsewhere in the city, and it fell into disrepair.

Casablanca is not a World Heritage Site. Its nomination file, titled "Casablanca, Ville du XXe siècle, carrefour d'influences", was submitted on 27 November 2013 under cultural criteria (ii) and (iv). The same year, "Casablanca" was added to Morocco's tentative list of World Heritage, which is a preliminary step rather than an inscription. A 2015 workshop on the file noted that the nomination file is progressing through expert consultation, and that the city's management follows UNESCO's Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscapes (2013). A 2025 project page still described the city as on the indicative list, which confirms that the nomination had not yet been completed.

The city's heritage is under pressure from redevelopment. In the decades after independence, real-estate development and property speculation reshaped the city, and preservationists have focused on the deteriorating facades. Demolition has removed significant buildings. The Villa Mokri was demolished in 1995, and Cinema Vox, an Art Deco cinema completed in 1935, was demolished in the 1970s. A 1930s pool, the Piscine Orthlieb, was destroyed in 1986 to make way for the Hassan II Mosque. Developers have also used technical procedures to clear sites: buildings are sometimes assessed as "structurally unsafe," which makes them easier to demolish. Other schemes keep only a building's exterior. A planned restructuring of a former bank headquarters on Boulevard Mohammed V would empty the building of its floors and keep only the facade with its structural elements rebuilt. The Lincoln rehabilitation, led by OCP and Réalités, similarly aims to preserve the Art Deco facade while converting the building into a high-end hotel complex.

The policy debate centres on whether heritage protection can withstand land speculation. The association Casamémoire, founded in 1995, has spent three decades documenting a built inheritance that keeps disappearing even as it is being catalogued. A 2025 academic study argues that in the absence of robust legal and fiscal tools to curb speculation and redistribute land value gains, patrimonial strategies risk reinforcing spatial inequalities. It also holds that protecting the architectural legacy will require more than technical inventories or symbolic designations. Public engagement is part of the response: guided walks, including evening "Heritage Nights" tours during Ramadan, have taken thousands of people around the city's architecture, and these events aim to build wider local support for conservation.

Hassan II Mosque

King Hassan II commissioned the project to celebrate his 60th birthday, although the work took much longer than the original target. Groundbreaking is dated to 12 July 1986, and the building was completed on 30 August 1993. Michel Pinseau, who had lived in Casablanca for over 20 years and studied Moroccan Islamic architecture extensively, developed the design. The result is a building that combines Islamic religious function with regional architectural traditions, including Moroccan, Andalusian and Moorish elements.

The site is the mosque's defining feature. Sources usually put one-third of the mosque over the Atlantic, on a platform that joins a natural rock outcrop reclaimed from the sea and the area where a pool once stood. Protection from the water came in the form of a pair of breakwaters that stand between the building and swells which can reach heights of up to 10 metres. During construction, a temporary pier of about 800 metres was also erected to shield the foundations of the pillars.

The minaret is 210 metres high. Reference lists disagree on its ranking: one encyclopedic summary calls it the world's second tallest minaret, whereas a visitor guide states it has the tallest minaret in the world. A laser at its top is directed toward Mecca, the light from which is directed towards Mecca. The prayer space is equally large: the hall holds about 25,000 people and the outdoor esplanade about 80,000, so the total capacity is a maximum of 105,000 worshippers. The figures for the workforce also differ. The foundation's own statement credits 3,300 Moroccan craftsmen, while a tourism site cites intricate tilework crafted by 10,000 artisans.

The marine location created continuing engineering problems. Salt water penetrated the building's concrete, and one account reports that the walls started to crumble under the steady attack of the saltwater waves. Another source notes that salt water penetration into the porous concrete caused corrosion of reinforcement bars within a decade. Corrosion specialists later found that after twenty-five years, the salty sea air had corroded a number of metallic parts supporting the travertine covering the façade. Dates for the restoration vary between sources: one puts the start in 2004, approximately ten years post-opening, while another dates it to beginning in 2005.

The repairs used more resistant materials. The restored sections were reinforced with 1,300 metric tonnes of moly-grade duplex stainless steel, and the authorities specified that the repaired structure should last 100 years. Design choices made at the outset also reflected the environment. Metal doors were made of titanium, which avoid oxidation, and the roof and side doors can be opened to ventilate the hall.

Industrial structure and manufacturing

Casablanca is widely described as the industrial centre of Morocco. Secondary accounts put more than half of the country's factories, investment flows and commercial operations inside the city, and they describe its mix of light and heavy industry as the most concentrated in the country. The sources do not agree on the exact share, however. One compilation credits Greater Casablanca with about 33% of national industrial exports, 33% of national industrial exports, MAD 27 billion, approximately US$3.6 billion, come from the Greater Casablanca. Another places the wider Casablanca-Settat region at roughly a quarter of national industrial activity. These figures measure different things (exports, output, plant counts), and they come from secondary summaries rather than a single official series, so they should be read as approximate.

Manufacturing is spread across several branches with different histories. Textiles and leather have deep roots in the city, textiles and leather goods historically prominent due to abundant local labor and raw materials. Electronics and food processing expanded more recently, electronics and food processing have grown through foreign investment and export-oriented policies. Other branches include building materials, glass, beverages, furniture and sawmilling. Chemicals and para-chemicals are also part of the industrial base, and the city hosts many of the firms and suppliers that serve these sectors.

Aeronautics is a newer branch that has been promoted through dedicated land. The Nouaceur aeropole lies near Casablanca airport, and in October 2019 two aircraft-part production plants were inaugurated there. One of them was designed to make boiler parts and aeronautical subassemblies, and the government presented the plants as part of a wider effort to strengthen the national aviation supply chain. Industrial land is also being expanded. The regional council has been working to fill approximately 700 hectares of land with the aim of establishing logistics, industrial and service platforms, with new zones planned at sites such as Zenata and Nawasir. Industrial policy has not always concentrated growth in the city. Mid-century development plans sought to create new industrial parks outside the crowded Casablanca-Kénitra coastal area, which was an explicit attempt to decentralise investment.

Phosphates and processing form a separate pillar of the economy. Casablanca's phosphate exporting industry is one of the main global ports and the administrative center for its trade. Nationally, processing phosphate ore into fertilizers and phosphoric acid for export is a major economic activity, and the port's role in moving these products links the city's industry to the wider national economy and to export markets through the harbour. The city's fertiliser-related trade is thus closely tied to port infrastructure rather than to factories inside the urban core.

Fishing and fish canning once occupied a larger place in the city's industry. The canning sector has shifted southward as the sardine resource moved, and some older plants in locations such as Casablanca have closed, while newer large-capacity plants have opened further south at Tan Tan. The main canning concentration lies on the central Atlantic coast, where the plants are clustered in the Moroccan Centre Atlantic and are heavily concentrated in the Safi - Agadir area. Casablanca nonetheless remains the home of fisheries research and inspection bodies, and the city's fish trade still depends on its auction and wholesale functions.

Free trade zones are another instrument of industrial policy. Among the operational free trade zones in Morocco is one at Casablanca (Midparc), which supports export-oriented manufacturing and related services under a dedicated legal status.

Financial centre and corporate headquarters

Casablanca's financial role is concentrated in Casablanca Finance City (CFC). The district was set up under Law No. 44-10, dated December 2010. That law created a "CFC Status" that gives companies operating there specific financial and regulatory advantages. A public entity, the Casablanca Finance City Authority, manages and promotes the district. Its premises occupy land that once held the former Casablanca–Anfa Airport, which has since been turned into office towers, housing and hotels.

The centre presents itself as a leading African financial center, uniquely positioned to bridge business opportunities between Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean. Figures reported in 2024 counted 215 companies whose activities span 115 countries, including 50 African nations. Regional headquarters of multinational companies account for approximately 40% of these companies. Its tenants include commercial and investment banks, insurance companies, investment funds, asset management companies, consulting and law firms. Rankings differ by source. The Global Financial Centres Index placed the centre first in Africa in its 2016 report, at 33rd globally, while a 2024 report put it third among Middle Eastern and African centres, behind Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The Casablanca Stock Exchange, established in 1929, plays a central role in the Moroccan financial system. A reform in 1993 brought in electronic trading and reorganised the market into a central market and a block trade market. As of August 2025, it comprised 17 brokerage firms and 78 listed companies, with a total market capitalisation of approximately 1.043 trillion dirhams. Its continental standing is also disputed. Wikipedia describes it as the second-largest stock exchange in Africa, after the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. An older overview placed it third largest in Africa, and another listing service gives a count of 75+ listed companies, which differs from the 78 cited above.

Banks make up a large part of the exchange and of the city's corporate base. In 2021, ten credit institutions were listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange, including six banks and four financing companies. These institutions represent almost 34 percent of the market capitalization. Several of the country's largest financial groups are headquartered in the city. BCP Group, also referred to as Banque Populaire or Chaabi, is a Moroccan international financial services group headquartered at the BCP Tower in Casablanca. Attijariwafa bank is a Moroccan international financial services group headquartered in Casablanca. Bank of Africa and the commercial bank Saham Bank are also based there, with Saham tracing its origins to the Moroccan subsidiary of the French banking group Société Générale, established in 1913. The state-owned Al Barid Bank, a subsidiary of Barid Al-Maghrib, is headquartered in the city as well. Foreign lenders are present too; Citibank Maghreb, which has operated in Morocco since 1967, keeps two branches in Casablanca and Rabat. Locally owned banks dominate the sector, accounting for 82.3 percent of industry assets.

Port, airport and transport networks

Casablanca's transport system is built around its harbour, which has long been the basis of the city's economy. The port of Casablanca is one of the largest artificial ports in Africa and the third-largest port in North Africa, after Tanger-Med and Port Said. Its operator, Marsa Maroc, was created in 2006 under Law 15-02, which reformed the sector and split regulation from commercial operation. The reform created two separate entities: the Agence Nationale des Ports, which became the industry regulator, and the Société d'Exploitation des Ports, later branded as Marsa Maroc, which took over commercial port operations.

Estimates of the port's weight in national trade vary. One source ranks it behind Tanger Med in cargo and container tonnage and says it handles around 38% of maritime traffic through the country. Another claims it processes roughly 40% of Morocco's foreign trade. The two figures measure different things, so neither should be treated as a settled national share. The harbour is sheltered by two breakwaters running in a NW and NE direction, and an ocean swell may set up between Oct and Mar, but work usually continues uninterrupted. Its terminals handle containers, Ro-Ro vehicles, minerals and general cargo. Marsa Maroc's own figures give a container capacity of 700,000 TEUs in terms of domestic container traffic (and 1.300.000 TEUs including TC3PC). In 2026 the company also secured a 20-year extension to the concession for Container Terminal 3 (CT3) at the Port of Casablanca.

Air travel is served by Mohammed V International Airport, which is located in Nouaceur Province and is operated by Airports of Morocco. It is the country's busiest airport. With about 7.6 million passengers passing through the airport in 2022, it was the busiest airport in Morocco and in the top 10 of busiest airports in Africa. Its traffic has since grown, and the infobox figure for 2024 is 10,449,372 passengers. The airport acts as a hub for Royal Air Maroc and Air Arabia Maroc. Its share of flights is large: it handles over 40% of all aircraft movements, including landings and take-offs. The airport lies about 30 kilometres southeast of Casablanca, and a rail link connects it to the city centre, with trains that journey time is half an hour.

The rail network has two principal stations in the city. Casa-Voyageurs, in the Belvedere district, opened in 1923. It was built by the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Maroc (CFM) in 1923, under the French protectorate of Morocco. It is Casablanca's principal station and an important hub connecting several main lines of the Moroccan railway network. Casa-Port, close to the harbour, was rebuilt after a long delay. Its renovation ran from 2008 until September 2014, and the station was upgraded to include eight tracks and five platforms. It serves around 10,000 passengers daily. Commuter services from Casa-Port also run to Kénitra via Rabat on the Train Navette Rapide line, which was launched in 1984.

High-speed rail is already in operation, although the outline's "planned" framing needs updating. The Al Boraq service opened 15 November 2018 and runs on a line of 350 km (220 mi) with an operating speed of 320 km/h (200 mph). Its stations include Kenitra, Rabat-Agdal and Casa-Voyageurs. Extensions are still under discussion: the Al-Boraq network would eventually terminate in Agadir, according to the transport ministry's 2022 announcement, and a line to Marrakesh has also been proposed. Within the city, the tramway is the main urban transit system. Line 1 is described as the 31km Y-shaped Casablanca T1 tram line, and the trams provide services to around 250,000 passengers per day.

Social movements and political history

Casablanca was a centre of protest throughout the late colonial and early post-independence periods. Its episodes of unrest combined anti-colonial politics with urban grievances over living costs, jobs and schooling. <!-- none -->

The first major episode came in December 1952. Riots broke out on 7 and 8 December, after the Tunisian labour leader Farhat Hached was assassinated in Tunis on 5 December by La Main Rouge, a clandestine unit linked to French intelligence. The protests centred on Carrières Centrales, a working-class neighbourhood on the city's outskirts (now Hay Mohammadi), where rural migrants and people displaced from the centre in 1938 lived. A Trove wire report from the time said police fired on about 3,000 demonstrators trying to storm a police station, and at least 25 people were reported killed, including two French civilians. The riots were part of a longer pattern of anti-French unrest in the city during the 1940s and 1950s.

The 1965 uprising was the most consequential of these episodes. It began on 22 March 1965 in front of Lycée Mohammed V, where thousands of students had gathered to demand the right to public higher education. The march was dispersed by security forces, and the students returned the next day with workers and unemployed people. The crowds vandalised shops, burned buses and cars, and chanted slogans against King Hassan II. Security forces used tanks for two days, and General Mohamed Oufkir was reported to have fired on the crowd from a helicopter. Casualty figures remain disputed: the authorities reported about a dozen deaths, the opposition UNFP claimed more than 1,000, and Amnesty later estimated several hundred. In a speech of 30 March, the king blamed teachers and parents for the unrest. An amnesty followed in April 1965, and death sentences were commuted. The episode took place against a political background in which Hassan II had consolidated power through the 1962 constitution, which kept real authority in the monarchy's hands, and in which the opposition UNFP, led by Mehdi Ben Barka, had grown more openly critical. Prosecutions of students continued in Casablanca: in 1973, 48 of 80 UNEM members tried in the city were sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

Later in 1965, Casablanca hosted the third Arab League summit, held in secret from 13 to 17 September (some sources give 18 September as the close). The summit was boycotted by Tunisia over its disputes with Egypt, and it ended without any notable decisions. Its only lasting outcome was the Casablanca Protocol of 11 September, a five-article statement on the legal status of Palestinians in Arab states. Shlomo Gazit, a former Israeli intelligence official, later claimed that Moroccan authorities had invited Israeli agents to bug the conference hotel, but this claim is not independently verified.

The 1981 bread riots, which began in early June 1981 (some sources give 20 June), were triggered by sharp price rises for butter, sugar, wheat flour and cooking oil after a severe drought. Young people from the shantytowns around the city attacked symbols of wealth, including buses, banks, pharmacies, grocery shops and expensive cars, and police and military units fired into the crowds. The government reported 66 deaths and about 100 injured, while the opposition put the death toll at 637, with most victims being young people from the slums. Hassan II appointed Driss Basri, a hardliner later associated with the Years of Lead, to restore order. The state's response also changed how it governed marginalised districts: according to researchers, it turned to administrative restructuring and large public works to make its presence visible, a strategy that shaped urban planning in neighbourhoods such as Hay Mohammadi.

Taken together, these episodes show how the city's protests tied household costs, unemployment and access to education to national politics. Each was met with a combination of force and political concession, and the government's handling of them defined much of the relationship between the urban population and the monarchy during the following decades.

Contemporary environmental and housing challenges

Casablanca's coast is one of its most pressing long-term problems. A remote-sensing study of the shoreline found that the sand beaches lying below about 12 metres of elevation are under erosion pressure as the sea rises, and the same work classed half of the study area as highly vulnerable to inundation and coastal erosion. The creation of a database and its analysis show that the major parts of the coastline, especially on the sand beaches, situated at elevation less than 12 m are threatened by the sea rising at the rate of 2.6 mm/year and are under pressure of erosion. A later assessment of shoreline change from 2000 to 2023 recorded erosion of up to 1.5 m/yr on these sandy stretches. The historical record points the same way. Along the Casablanca–Mohammedia coast, the shoreline has retreated since 1962, and one study estimated a loss of about 22 metres over 24 years, while another attributed the regressive trend to strong wave action amplified by the anthropic activity, meaning human interventions on the coast. Projections cited by a UNFCCC preparatory note, drawing on a World Bank estimate, suggest that a 20 cm rise in sea level in Casablanca can be expected by 2030, which would lead to a loss of 10 to 15 m of the coastlines. The same note estimates the share of the population living below sea level at 6% under a 1.5 °C warming scenario and 14% under 4 °C.

Water supply is the second major pressure, and the policy question is how to balance groundwater, surface water and new non-conventional sources. The regional authority describes the Casablanca-Settat area as facing water stress and declining rainfalls in recent years, and it is installing modular reverse-osmosis units. The Casablanca-Settat region is implementing approximately 30 desalination stations, of which 17 of 28 planned modular seawater desalination units were reported operational at the time of the announcement. The major project is the large seawater plant at Sidi Rahal, about 40 km southwest of the city. Initially it will provide 200 million m3 of water annually for irrigation and municipal water supply, and a subsequent phase will expand its capacity to 300 million m3 annually by 2030. Officials expect the main plant to meet a large share of regional needs once it is complete. National planning also aims to reduce dependence on conventional sources, with one ONEE-linked estimate projecting that the share of water from surface and groundwater would fall to 80% from 97% by 2035. Because desalination is energy-intensive, its cost is tied to power generation, which, as one report notes, relies for most of its power production on imported fossil fuels.

Housing shortages and informal settlements are a second set of challenges. Casablanca attracts a large portion of internal migration flows, significantly boosting the demand for housing. Meanwhile land reserves, essential for the construction of new housing, are becoming scarce. Land prices in central districts such as Maarif and Anfa have pushed up the cost of new construction, with prices exceed 25,000 Dhs per square meter in these areas. Shantytowns have a long history in the city, and informal housing expanded after earlier relocations pushed vulnerable residents to the outskirts. The state's Villes Sans Bidonvilles programme, launched after 2003, sought to relocate shantytown households to mostly peripheral, but serviced plots for auto-construction. Critics argue that such relocations can cut residents off from the informal livelihoods on which they depend, since peripheral sites are far from urban centers, transport hubs, and established economic circuits. The outcomes are mixed: a study of resettled households found a paradox in which residents faced displacement threats yet hopes to be soon moving into a higher-quality home. A local cultural centre director put the remaining share of shantytown residents in Casablanca at 30 to 40 percent in 2017, which shows how far the programme's goals were from completion.

Urban heat and rapid densification are also central to planning debates about the city's future. Dense construction in built-up areas tends to raise surface and air temperatures, and planners must weigh this against the need for housing, transport and green space. Decisions on these trade-offs will shape how the city adapts to both rising temperatures and the coastal and water pressures described above.

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129. Casablanca: Queen of offshoringvoyages-d-affaires.com
130. Two New Aeronautics Plants Open in Casablanca, Strengthen Aviation Sectormoroccoworldnews.com
131. Fill 700 hectares to create huge industrial zones in Casablanca |en.hibapress.com
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155. Marsa Maroc secures 20-year CT3 concession extension at Casablancaworldcargonews.com
156. Mohammed V International Airporten.wikipedia.org
157. Airports of Moroccoen.wikipedia.org
158. Mohamed V International Airportairarabia.com
159. Casa-Voyageurs Railway Stationen.wikipedia.org
160. Casa-Port Railway Terminal, Casablancagpsmycity.com
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174. Casablanca Protocolen.wikipedia.org
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176. Impacts of sea-level rise on the Moroccan coastal zone: Quantifying coastal erosion and flooding in the Tangier Bayresearchgate.net
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180. Casablanca region develops 30 desalination stations to combat water stressnorthafricapost.com
181. Desalination in Morocco: meeting water demands in a water-scarce regionsmartwatermagazine.com
182. New desalination plant points towards Morocco’s drought responsewtvbam.com
183. Casablanca: a metropolis facing land shortage - Agenzagenz.ma
184. From the City to the Desertrepub.eur.nl
185. Urban planning with informality in mind: Evidence from Casablanca, Morocco - ScienceDirectsciencedirect.com
186. Displaced but happy? Making sense of shantytown dwellers’ divergent views and experiences of resettlement in Casablanca: City: Vol 28, No 1-2tandfonline.com
187. Morocco Without Slumskelseycochranphotography.com
188. Casablanca-Settat to launch 28 desalination stations to combat water shortageen.yabiladi.com
189. Casablanca Desalination Plantaraburban.org
190. Construction of Casablanca desalination plant in Morocco beginspumps-africa.com