Biography of Marrakesh
The third largest city in the country after Casablanca and Rabat, one of the four imperial cities of Morocco. Marrakesh is located near the foot of the snowy mountains of a high satin on one side, as well as a few hours from the spaces of the Sahara desert. Marrakesh gave the name to the country: earlier the entire territory of Morocco was known as Marrakesh. The location of the city, its historical heritage and contrast landscape make Marrakesh one of the main tourist centers of Morocco.
The influence of the Berber and Arabic languages forms conflicting opinions about the origin of the name of the city. According to one version, the name comes from Arabic Marrakush, which means “red”, and according to the other, from Berber - “the city of God”.
The often used historical epithet red city arose thanks to a similar shade of buildings and fortress walls of Medina. The population of the city is more than one million inhabitants. The city is divided into two parts: Medina, a historical city, and a new European modern area called Heliz Gueliz. Medina retains the historical appearance of the city with the interweaving of wide and narrow streets, small local shops and restaurants.
Unlike Medina, the Geliz area has a regular urban planning with wide streets, there are modern restaurants and large shopping centers. The history of [edit] Marrakesh was founded in the year and immediately became the capital of the Almoravid state, a fragment of the Arab caliphate, which included the Western Maghrib, that is, almost the entire modern territory of Morocco and Western Sahara, as well as Andalusia - the south of the Pyrenee Peninsula.
Stone construction began in the year. However, Marrakesh's heyday fell on the reign of the Almoravid Emir Ali Ibn-Yusuf, in which a large-scale construction program began in the city, and this, in turn, attracted merchants and artisans, primarily dyes. Outside of Medina was a large Jewish quarter. In the year, Marrakesh was conquered by the new Berberian dynasty, Almohadi, but remained the capital up to a year.
At this time, the empire no longer existed, in the years the state of Almohadov included only Marrakesh and its closest environs, and the new Marinida dynasty, who won the city, decided to leave its capital in the city of Fes. At the end of the 14th century, although Marrakesh was formally dependent on the Marinid sultans of Fes, they rarely intervened in his affairs, and at the beginning of the 14th century the state of Marinids broke up.
In the years, Marrakesh was besieged by the Portuguese who controlled the majority of the coast by that time, but could not take the city, as they were defeated by another Berberian dynasty, which came from Anti-Atlas. They later controlled Marrakesh. At first they also formally obeyed the Sultans of Fes, but by the years they united most of Morocco under their rule.
Thus, Marrakesh again became the capital of a large state. This continued until the middle of the 17th century, when Morocco again for a short time turned out to be fragmented, and Marrakesh, who refused to swear to Sultan Fes, was taken by the troops of the latter and plundered. In the future, he was controlled by various Berber rulers, sometimes making the city their capital, sometimes not, until he was taken in the year by the French army.
Up to a year, Europeans closed access to the city without the special permission of the Sultan. The French built a new city outside the walls of Medina, and in the year Morocco gained independence, after which in the years Marrakesh’s popularity as a tourist center increased significantly. As of spring, its consequences are inconsistent, but in some places of the city you can find abandoned dilapidated houses, piles of clay or construction forests.
Orientation [edit] Medina has a complex polygonal shape and is surrounded by a fortress wall. The new city is located northwest of it. The main bus station is also others near the north-west gate, a woman-dodkal, from the outside of Medina, in a new city. The railway station, on the contrary, is located on the western edge of the Old City. The highway on Casablanca begins in the northern part of the old city, and get there without GPS is a small -trivial adventure.
Menara gardens are west of Medina, a couple of kilometers from the wall. How to get.