Top Things to Do in Casablanca

Casablanca is Morocco's largest city and its economic engine, a metropolis of nearly four million people that operates at a tempo entirely different from the imperial cities of Fez, Marrakech, and Meknes. While those cities trade on medieval medinas and artisan traditions, Casablanca is a 20th-century creation -- a French-colonial port city that expanded rapidly during the Protectorate era (1912-1956) and has continued to grow as Morocco's commercial capital. The result is a city of striking Art Deco architecture, modernist mosques of unprecedented scale, and a cosmopolitan energy that owes more to Marseille and Istanbul than to the Sahara. The Hassan II Mosque dominates both the skyline and the visitor experience. Completed in 1993 on a platform extending over the Atlantic, it is the largest mosque in Africa, the third largest in the world, and one of the few in Morocco open to non-Muslim visitors. Beyond the mosque, Casablanca rewards those willing to look past the initial impression of traffic and construction: the Art Deco quartier around Mohammed V Square contains some of the finest early-20th-century architecture in the Arab world, the Corniche along Ain Diab Beach offers ocean-facing promenades and seafood restaurants, and the old medina near the port retains a density and authenticity that its more famous counterparts in other Moroccan cities have largely commercialized away. First-time visitors should understand that Casablanca is not the romantic fantasy conjured by the Humphrey Bogart film. It is a working city where business gets done, where Moroccan modernity is most visible, and where the tension between tradition and progress plays out in architecture, fashion, and daily life. The city functions best as either a bookend to a broader Morocco itinerary or as a destination for those specifically interested in Islamic architecture, colonial urbanism, and contemporary Moroccan culture.