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Meknes is one of the four imperial cities of Morocco, in the north-central Fez-Meknes region, and it is famous for the monumental gate of Bab Mansour, the great square of Place el-Hedim and the vast palace city of Sultan Moulay Ismail. The 2024 census counted about 551,500 people.
Founded by the Almoravids as a military settlement in the 11th century, Meknes became the capital of Morocco under Moulay Ismail, who reigned from 1672 to 1727. He ringed it with ramparts and gates and built a palace complex so large that historians called it the Moroccan Versailles, with granaries, stables and a huge water basin.
Visitors start at Place el-Hedim, pass under Bab Mansour to the Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail and walk on to the granaries of Heri es-Souani and the Sahrij Souani basin. In the medina wait the Bou Inania Madrasa and the Dar Jamai music museum, and the Roman ruins of Volubilis are about half an hour to the north.
Bab Mansour is the monumental gate on the south side of Place el-Hedim in Meknes and the old ceremonial entrance to the kasbah of Sultan Moulay Ismail. Finished in 1732 by his son Moulay Abdallah and named after its architect, it is covered in zellij and carved patterns, and it is usually closed.
Place el-Hedim is the vast square at the southern end of the Meknes medina, before the gates of Moulay Ismail's palace city, and it is often compared to Marrakesh's Jemaa el-Fnaa. Its name means the rubble, after the debris piled here when the sultan demolished the old kasbah to build his palaces.
Bab el-Khemis is a monumental western gate of Meknes near the former Mellah, built in 1687 under Sultan Moulay Ismail when he refortified the city. Its arch is richly decorated with carved motifs and zellij much like Bab Mansour, and it is one of the finest gates of the imperial city.
Bab Berdaine is the northern gate of the Meknes medina, rebuilt by Moulay Ismail and finished in 1695 according to Ibn Zaydan. Two massive square towers flank its horseshoe arch, and its name likely comes from an old market of packsaddle makers, and all trade from the north came through it.
The Mausoleum of Moulay Ismail in Meknes holds the tomb of the sultan who ruled Morocco from 1672 to 1727 and made Meknes his capital. Courtyards with fountains and zellij lead to the richly decorated tomb chamber, which also holds two grandfather clocks given by King Louis XIV of France.
Heri es-Souani is the giant granary of the imperial city of Meknes, built under Moulay Ismail together with the House of the Ten Norias, where wheels drew water from underground for the palaces. Its vaulted halls are often wrongly called the royal stables, and they are visited as one site today.
The Sahrij Souani, also called the Agdal Basin, is the enormous water basin beside Heri es-Souani in Meknes, about 149 by 319 metres and 1.2 metres deep. Built as part of Moulay Ismail's water supply, it was also used by palace residents for bathing and boating.
Qara Prison is a set of underground vaulted chambers built in the early 18th century for Sultan Moulay Ismail in Meknes. Legend calls it a prison for thousands of Christian captives taken at sea, though most scholars think it was a huge storage space for the royal kasbah.
The Bou Inania Madrasa in Meknes was founded in 1335 and 1336 by the Marinid sultan Abu al-Hasan near the Grand Mosque. Its courtyard has a marble fountain and walls of zellij, carved stucco and cedar wood, and 39 small rooms on two floors once housed the students of the city.
The Grand Mosque of Meknes is the main Friday mosque and one of the oldest monuments of the medina, believed to date from the 12th century under the Almoravids. Enlarged by the Almohads and restored by the Marinids, it anchors the souk streets and madrasas around it and keeps an Almohad chandelier.
The Dar Jamai Museum fills a palace built in 1882 on Place el-Hedim in Meknes by Mokhtar el-Jamai, grand vizier of Sultan Moulay Hassan. A museum since 1920, it reopened in March 2022 as the National Museum of Music after a restoration of its woodwork, stucco, zellij and Andalusian-style garden.
The Lalla Aouda Mosque in Meknes was founded in 1276 by the Marinid sultan Abu Yusuf Ya'qub as the mosque of his kasbah, and Moulay Ismail rebuilt it between 1672 and 1678 as the royal mosque of his palace. The wide Place Lalla Aouda in front of it was once the main parade ground of the sultan.
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