Guide 01 of 08
The Medina
A city inside a city
How a thousand-year-old city works — the walls, the dead ends, the layers, the light.
12 observations
Why are Moroccan houses inward-facing, not outward?
Wealth is expressed inward, toward the courtyard, not outward toward the street. A plain exterior wall protects domestic life from the public gaze. It's not a limitation — it's a deliberate value system called hchouma, roughly: what's private stays private.
From the street, every house looks the same. Plain walls, a wooden door, maybe a brass knocker. No garden, no porch, no bay windows announcing wealth. The derb gives nothing away.
Why do medina streets feel narrower than the map suggests?
They were built for shoulders, not wing mirrors. Walls lean in over centuries, upper floors reach across for shade, and without a single straight sightline, your brain quietly loses track of distance.
Read more →Why do so many streets end in walls or dead ends?
Dead ends are deliberate: they mark the transition from public to semi-private residential territory. The medina's layout filters strangers away from homes. What looks like poor planning is actually a sophisticated access control system.
Read more →Why do Moroccan cities feel layered, not organized?
Moroccan cities were built incrementally over centuries without master plans. Roman, Arab, Berber, French, and modern layers coexist. A single wall may contain 12th-century stone, 18th-century plaster, and 2020s electrical wiring. The city is a palimpsest, not a blueprint.
Read more →Why do medina walls feel like memory?
Medina walls are made of tadelakt, pisé, and earth plaster that erode, patch, and re-erode visibly. Every repair leaves a mark. Walls display their own history—cracks, color shifts, patches—like geological strata. They age rather than decay.
Read more →Why do neighborhoods have their own invisible rules?
Each derb (neighborhood) has unwritten social codes managed by long-term residents. Who can park where, when noise is acceptable, how strangers are received—these are negotiated communally, not legally. A medina neighborhood functions like a village within a city.
Read more →Why do markets feel alive but not loud?
Souk acoustics absorb sound through textiles, leather, and narrow geometry. Sellers project voice directionally, not broadcast. The overall volume is dense but layered—each sound occupies its own spatial zone. It registers as alive rather than chaotic because it has spatial logic.
The souk is wall-to-wall sound. Hammering, haggling, a radio playing Gnawa, a man shouting prices for oranges. But it doesn't feel like noise. It feels like a frequency — something coherent you could tune into rather than block out.
Why do shop aisles seem emptier but more crowded?
Souks stack merchandise vertically and display goods protruding into the aisle. The functional walkway is narrower than the architectural space. Merchandise, not walls, defines the edges. You navigate product, not architecture.
Read more →Why is there white powdery stuff on the walls?
The white powder is efflorescence—mineral salts (mainly calcium carbonate and sodium sulfate) drawn to the surface by moisture migrating through earth walls. It's a symptom of the wall's breathable construction, not damage. Sealing the wall with paint makes it worse by trapping moisture inside.
Read more →Why do cats outnumber dogs in these cities?
Cats are considered ritually clean in Islam and have been tolerated in Moroccan cities for centuries. They control the medina's rodent population and move freely through homes, shops, and mosques. A 2025 draft law (19.25) would criminalize feeding strays in public — controversial and still under parliamentary review.
Read more →Why do cockroaches show up even in clean places?
Cockroaches are endemic to warm, dense cities. The medina's interconnected drainage, shared walls, and century-old construction create pathways between buildings. A cockroach in a clean riad traveled there from the infrastructure below, not from the kitchen. Their presence indicates climate and urban density, not hygiene failure.
Read more →Is Marrakech safe after the 2023 earthquake?
Yes. The medina was shaken but not destroyed. Most riads sustained cosmetic damage and have been repaired. The souks never closed. The lasting devastation is in remote mountain villages, not the city.
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