The Most Beautiful Places in Morocco
21 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Morocco are Chefchaouen, Erg Chebbi and Aït Benhaddou. The list covers 21 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Morocco sits where the Atlas Mountains meet the Sahara and two seas, and its architecture grew from the meeting of Berber, Arab and Andalusian traditions. Dynasties from the Almoravids and Almohads to the Saadians and Alaouites built imperial cities at Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes and Rabat, while in the southern valleys communities raised fortified villages of rammed earth the colour of the ground beneath them.
In Marrakesh, the twelfth-century minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque set a model for the great Almohad towers, and the Ben Youssef Madrasa surrounds its courtyard with carved cedar, stucco and tile. The Bahia Palace spreads its painted ceilings and gardens over a whole quarter, and the Majorelle Garden, created by the painter Jacques Majorelle and later restored by Yves Saint Laurent, sets cacti and palms against walls of vivid blue. In Fez, Bab Bou Jeloud opens into the old medina through arches clad in blue and green tile. Casablanca's Hassan II Mosque stands partly over the Atlantic with one of the tallest minarets in the world, and in Rabat the Mausoleum of Mohammed V faces the ruins of the Hassan Tower.
Older and wilder places complete the picture. Volubilis keeps the mosaics and triumphal arch of a Roman town among olive groves, and Aït Benhaddou, an earthen ksar on a hillside above a riverbed, has served as a backdrop for many films. Chefchaouen paints its mountain lanes in shades of blue, the Ouzoud Falls drop in stages into a red gorge in the Middle Atlas, and near Tangier the Caves of Hercules open to the sea through a gap shaped like a map of Africa.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chefchaouen | Most beautiful village | |
| 2 | Erg Chebbi | Dune | |
| 3 | Aït Benhaddou | Most beautiful village | |
| 4 | Hassan II Mosque | Mosque | |
| 5 | Ouzoud Falls | Waterfall | |
| 6 | Majorelle Garden | Botanical garden | |
| 7 | Todgha Gorge | Canyon | |
| 8 | Bou Inania Madrasa, Fez | Mosque | |
| 9 | Koutoubia Mosque | Mosque | ✓ |
| 10 | Caves of Hercules | Cave | |
| 11 | Volubilis | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 12 | Bab Bou Jeloud | City gate | ✓ |
| 13 | Bahia Palace | Palace | ✓ |
| 14 | Mausoleum of Mohammed V | Mausoleum | |
| 15 | Ben Youssef Madrasa | Museum | |
| 16 | Al-Attarine Madrasa | Mosque | |
| 17 | Portuguese cistern | Reservoir | |
| 18 | Bab Mansour | City gate | |
| 19 | Chouara Tannery | Industrial heritage site | |
| 20 | Saadian Tombs | Mausoleum | |
| 21 | Bab Agnaou | City gate | ✓ |
01 Chefchaouen
Morocco35.169° N 5.268° W
Image by eyw2008 from Pixabay Chefchaouen climbs a slope in the western Rif mountains at about 600 metres, and the walls, stairways, doors and lanes of its old town are washed in every shade of blue against white. The effect has earned it the nickname of the Blue City, or the Blue Pearl.
Did you know? Sayyida al-Hurra, daughter of the town's founder, was born here in the early 1490s and later ruled Tétouan as governor while leading corsair fleets in the Mediterranean.
02 Erg Chebbi
Morocco31.167° N 3.983° W
Image by pixelRaw from Pixabay Erg Chebbi is the Sahara as the imagination paints it: a single sea of sand rising abruptly out of the flat black stone desert of south-eastern Morocco, close to the Algerian border.
Did you know? Its oldest sand dates to the Younger Dryas, an abrupt cold spell around 12,000 to 13,000 years ago.
03 Aït Benhaddou
Morocco31.050° N 7.133° W
Image by sosinda from Pixabay Aït Benhaddou is an entire fortified village made of earth, stacked up a hillside above the Ounila river on the southern side of the High Atlas.
Did you know? UNESCO credits the ksar with keeping its authenticity because builders still use traditional earth techniques and have largely avoided concrete.
04 Hassan II Mosque
Morocco · 1.5 km from Casablanca33.607° N 7.633° W
Image by postcardtrip from Pixabay King Hassan II built this mosque on a foundation that should not really exist: reclaimed land driven into the Atlantic, with roughly half the structure extending out over open water.
Did you know? The minaret was the tallest in the world when completed in 1993, built with a Bouygues concrete about four times stronger than usual to resist wind and earthquakes.
05 Ouzoud Falls
Morocco32.015° N 6.719° W
Alexander Leisser · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Ouzoud Falls pour over the lip of a red-rock gorge in the Atlas mountains of Azilal Province, dropping around 110 metres in three main steps, the longest a single plunge of about 75 metres. They are the tallest waterfalls in Morocco, and the spray hangs over the basin like smoke.
Did you know? The stream that feeds the falls is the Oued Tissakht, also called the Oued Ouzoud, and the falls drop from roughly 1,060 metres above sea level.
06 Majorelle Garden
Morocco · 1.1 km from Marrakesh31.642° N 8.003° W
Viault · CC BY-SA 4.0 Behind a plain wall in the Gueliz district of Marrakesh lies one of the most famous colours in the world. The painter Jacques Majorelle, who had settled in the city, began laying out a garden here in 1923 and spent close to forty years on it.
Did you know? Besides painting, Majorelle ran a handicrafts workshop in Marrakesh and designed posters promoting travel to Morocco.
07 Todgha Gorge
Morocco31.588° N 5.593° W
Not414 · Public domain Above the town of Tinghir, the Todgha river has sawn its way out of the eastern High Atlas through a wall of limestone, and in its last few hundred metres the result is one of the most theatrical passages in Morocco.
Did you know? The Todgha and the neighbouring Dadès rivers have each cut a chain of limestone canyons through the last forty or so kilometres of their mountain course.
08 Bou Inania Madrasa, Fez
Morocco · 1.9 km from Fez34.062° N 4.983° W
Bjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Bou Inania Madrasa in Fes el-Bali is the masterpiece of the Marinid sultans, the dynasty that ruled Morocco in the fourteenth century. It was founded by Sultan Abu Inan Faris; according to its foundation inscription, work began on 28 December 1350 and was completed in 1355.
Did you know? The canal crossing the building carries water from the Oued el-Lemtiyyin, a branch of the river of Fes, for ablutions.
09 Koutoubia Mosque
Morocco · 1.2 km from Marrakesh31.624° N 7.994° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by DEZALB from Pixabay The minaret of the Koutoubia is the landmark by which Marrakesh has measured itself for eight centuries. It rises about 77 m, its main square shaft almost 13 m wide, built of rubble masonry and sandstone that takes on a pink-gold tone in the evening.
Did you know? According to legend, the copper orbs on the finial are solid gold, one of them cast from a queen's jewellery as penance for breaking her Ramadan fast.
10 Caves of Hercules
Morocco · 12.1 km from Tangier35.760° N 5.939° W
Image by Bennobam from Pixabay The Caves of Hercules sit on Cape Spartel, the headland where the Atlantic meets the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, about 14 km west of Tangier.
Did you know? Roman sources tell that Hercules smashed through a mountain here instead of climbing it, opening the Strait of Gibraltar and creating the Pillars of Hercules.
11 Volubilis
Morocco · 19.1 km from Meknes34.071° N 5.554° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Yolanda from Pixabay Volubilis sits on a gentle ridge below the Zerhoun massif, looking over a plain of olive groves north of Meknes, and the olive is the key to the whole place.
Did you know? The city's name may come from the Berber word Walilt, meaning oleander, a flower that still grows along the valley.
12 Bab Bou Jeloud
Morocco · 1.8 km from Fez34.062° N 4.984° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
This Photo was taken by Timothy A. Gonsalves . Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author. I would much appreciate if you send me an email tagooty@yahoo.com or write on my talk page , for my information. Please contact me before commercial use. Please do not upload an edited image here without consulting me. I would like to make corrections only at my own source to ensure that the changes improve the image and are preserved. Otherwise you may upload an edited image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract . · CC BY-SA 4.0 Bab Bou Jeloud is younger than it looks. The triple-arched gate that frames the western entrance to Fes el-Bali was built by the French colonial administration: the head of municipal services laid out plans for a new opening in the walls in December 1912, and the gate was completed in 1913.
Did you know? The modest bent gateway beside it is believed to date from the Almohad period, making it some seven centuries older than its showy neighbour.
13 Bahia Palace
Morocco · 2.2 km from Marrakesh31.622° N 7.982° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
Val Traveler · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Bahia Palace is not one building but a sequence of them, grown over four decades the way a Marrakesh house grows: a garden here, a courtyard there, corridors bending to join them. That lack of a master plan is exactly what makes walking through it so rewarding.
Did you know? Ba Ahmed expanded the palace piece by piece as neighbouring plots came up for sale, reshaping the street plan of the district north of the Mellah.
14 Mausoleum of Mohammed V
Morocco · 1.4 km from Rabat34.023° N 6.822° W
Petar Milošević · CC BY-SA 4.0 On a broad esplanade above the Bou Regreg river in Rabat, two very different monuments face each other across eight centuries.
Did you know? The exterior is clad in Italian white marble and crowned by a pyramidal roof of green tiles.
15 Ben Youssef Madrasa
Morocco · 1.5 km from Marrakesh31.632° N 7.986° W
Lundeux · CC BY-SA 2.5 The Ben Youssef Madrasa is the great theological college of old Marrakesh, and its courtyard is one of the most complete expressions of Moroccan ornament to be seen anywhere.
Did you know? The madrasa takes its name from the neighbouring Ben Youssef Mosque, founded by the Almoravid sultan Ali ibn Yusuf, who reigned from 1106 to 1142.
16 Al-Attarine Madrasa
Morocco · 2.8 km from Fez34.065° N 4.974° W
Jerzystrzelecki · CC BY 3.0 Behind a plain wall on one of the narrow streets of the Fez medina lies a courtyard where almost no surface is left undecorated: geometric tile mosaic on the floor and the lower walls, a band of calligraphy at eye level, carved stucco lace above it, and carved cedar crowned with projecting wooden eaves at the top.
Did you know? The madrasa was sustained by a habous, a charitable trust of properties whose rents paid for its running and upkeep.
17 Portuguese cistern
Morocco · 0.8 km from El Jadida33.257° N 8.503° W
Guilandre · CC BY-SA 3.0 A single round opening in a vaulted stone ceiling lets one column of daylight drop into a dim, square hall, and a thin sheet of water on the floor turns the pillars, ribs and arches into a perfect upside-down reflection that trembles whenever a drop falls.
Did you know? When Portugal abandoned Mazagan in 1769, its last foothold in Morocco, most settlers were shipped to the Amazon and founded Nova Mazagão in present-day Amapá, Brazil.
18 Bab Mansour
Morocco · 1 km from Meknes33.893° N 5.565° W
Jerzy Strzelecki · CC BY 3.0 Meknes was chosen by Sultan Moulay Isma'il, who ruled Morocco from the late seventeenth century, as the seat of his power, and turned it into an imperial city of walls, gates and palace grounds.
Did you know? Its basic form follows Almohad gateways of the 12th and 13th centuries, such as Bab Agnaou in Marrakesh and the gate of the Kasbah of the Udayas in Rabat.
19 Chouara Tannery
Morocco · 3.1 km from Fez34.066° N 4.971° W
Image by Monlaw from Pixabay Seen from the terraces of the surrounding houses, the Chouara Tannery looks like a giant honeycomb: rows of round stone vats packed side by side, some filled with a chalky white liquid, others with dyes in shades of red, orange and blue, with hides laid out to dry in the sun around them and workers moving between the…
Did you know? A river rehabilitation project led by architect Aziza Chaouni once proposed moving the tanning out of the medina altogether, but the tannery was kept in place.
20 Saadian Tombs
Morocco · 2.1 km from Marrakesh31.617° N 7.989° W
C messier · CC BY-SA 4.0 Behind a plain wall in the old royal quarter of Marrakesh lies one of the most lavish burial places in the Islamic west.
Did you know? The star-patterned cedar cupola over al-Mansur's tomb is a smaller echo of the famous ceiling of the Hall of Ambassadors in Granada's Alhambra.
21 Bab Agnaou
Morocco · 1.9 km from Marrakesh31.618° N 7.991° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
John Doyle doyler79 · CC BY 3.0 Bab Agnaou is the ceremonial gate of the old royal kasbah of Marrakesh, a stone arch set into the southern part of the medina just inside the city walls. It was built under the Almohad caliph Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur, and completed around 1188–1190, as the formal entrance to the palace quarter he created.
Did you know? An interior staircase once climbed through the gatehouse to a terrace on its roof.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Morocco?
- On our list, Chefchaouen ranks first, followed by Erg Chebbi and Aït Benhaddou.
- Which films were shot at Aït Benhaddou?
- Aït Benhaddou has appeared in many films, including Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator and Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the series Game of Thrones. The ksar is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site as an example of southern Moroccan earthen architecture.
- Why is the Koutoubia minaret important?
- Completed under the Almohad dynasty in the twelfth century, the Koutoubia minaret became the model for other great Almohad towers, including the Giralda in Seville and the Hassan Tower in Rabat.
- What is special about the Hassan II Mosque?
- Completed in 1993 in Casablanca, the mosque is built partly on land reclaimed from the Atlantic, so the sea can be seen beneath parts of the prayer hall. Its minaret, about 210 metres tall, is among the tallest in the world.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Morocco?
- In our collection, the places in Morocco are most often mosques (4), city gates (3), mausoleums (2) and villages (2).
- How many places are on this list in Morocco?
- The list covers 21 places.