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Tangier is a port city in northwestern Morocco and the capital of the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, set on hills where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet at the Strait of Gibraltar. It is famous for its white medina and hilltop kasbah, its legendary cafes and the views across the water to Spain.
Founded as a Phoenician trading town, it became the Roman Tingis, then a Portuguese and briefly English stronghold, and from 1925 to 1956 an international zone that drew diplomats, spies, bohemians and writers. The traveller Ibn Battuta was born here in 1304, and the first American public property abroad still stands in the medina.
Visitors climb to the Kasbah Museum, sip tea at Cafe Hafa, cross the Grand Socco into the lanes around the Petit Socco and drive west to Cape Spartel and the Caves of Hercules. Along the bay a modern city of new marinas, a business district and the giant Tanger-Med port keeps growing fast.
The Kasbah Museum in Tangier fills the Kasbah Palace, or Dar al-Makhzen, built for the city's governor in the early 18th century on one of the highest points of the old town. Its two courtyards hold carpets, Fez silks and Roman finds from Volubilis, and its terraces look out over the Strait.
The Petit Socco, or Zoco Chico, is the small square at the heart of the Tangier medina, once ringed by the post offices of four European powers. The Gran Cafe Central and the Hotel Fuentes still face each other here, and a coffee on a terrace is the classic way to watch the old town go by.
The Grand Socco, officially Place du 9 Avril 1947, is the round square where the Tangier medina meets the newer town. A marble fountain, palms and benches fill its centre, the Cinema Rif and the Sidi Bou Abid Mosque stand on its edge, and an arch leads straight into the Mendoubia gardens.
Dar Niaba on Rue Es-Siaghine is one of the oldest buildings still standing in the Tangier medina, a Portuguese-era mansion with a stone portal. From 1851 to 1920 it housed the Naib, the sultan's envoy to the foreign legations, and since 2022 it has been a museum of that diplomatic past.
The Tangier American Legation in the medina was given to the United States by the sultan in 1821 and served as its diplomatic post for 140 years. It is the only U.S. National Historic Landmark abroad, and today its Moorish rooms and garden hold a museum, a library and a cultural centre.
The Mendoubia beside the Grand Socco in Tangier was remodelled as the German consulate in the 1870s and later became the seat of the Mendoub, the sultan's representative in the International Zone. In its gardens Mohammed V gave the Tangier Speech of 9 April 1947, a milestone toward independence.
The Gran Teatro Cervantes is a theatre built by the Spanish community of Tangier and named after the author of Don Quixote. Its first stone was laid in 1911 and it opened in 1913 with room for 1,400 spectators. Its decorated facade recalls the city's large Spanish population of that era.
St Andrew's Church is the Anglican church of Tangier, consecrated in 1905 on land first given by Sultan Hassan I. Built in a Moorish style, it has a bell tower shaped like a minaret, and its shady churchyard holds the graves of the writer Walter Harris and other figures of the international era.
The Grand Mosque of Tangier is the historic Friday mosque of the medina, on a site that held a Roman temple, a Marinid mosque and a Portuguese cathedral. Its present form comes from a rebuilding ordered by Sultan Moulay Slimane in 1815, and its gate and minaret rise near the Petit Socco.
The Kasbah Mosque is the main mosque of the walled citadel of Tangier, built in the late 17th century by the governor Ali Errifi after the English had left the city. His grandson Ahmed added its minaret and ornate entrance, and the mosque stands a short walk from the Kasbah Museum on the hilltop.
The Lalla Abla Mosque, also called the Port Mosque, stands on the fishing port of Tangier and was dedicated by King Mohammed VI in 2018. Named after his grandmother, it fills a plot of 5,712 square metres with two prayer halls for over 1,900 worshippers, and its minaret is a landmark of the bay.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Spanish Church or La Purisima, was built in 1880 and 1881 on Rue Es-Siaghine, just west of the Petit Socco in Tangier. It stands on the site of the old Swedish legation, and the clock tower added in 1892 and 1893 is now topped by a small cupola.
Cape Spartel, about 12 kilometres west of Tangier, is the northwesternmost point of Africa, where the Atlantic meets the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. Its lighthouse was built by Sultan Muhammad IV in 1864, and since a renovation in 2021 visitors can climb it and see a small maritime museum.
The Caves of Hercules lie below Cape Spartel, about 14 kilometres west of Tangier, and open both to the land and to the sea. The sea opening is shaped like a map of Africa, legend says Hercules slept here, and Berbers once cut millstones from the rock walls, widening the cave a great deal.
Perdicaris Park, or the Rmilat Forest, covers 70 hectares on the slopes of Jebel Kebir above the Strait in Tangier. It was created in the 1870s by Ion Perdicaris, whose kidnapping here in 1904 made world news, and his villa reopened as a heritage centre in 2022 among hundreds of plant species.
Cafe Hafa has served mint tea on the cliffs of Tangier since 1921, its terraces stepping down toward the Strait of Gibraltar with Tarifa in Spain visible across the water. Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones all came here, and its simple decor has barely changed.
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