Why does Agadir look nothing like other Moroccan cities?

You land expecting ochre walls and narrow alleys. Instead: wide boulevards, concrete apartment blocks, a beachfront promenade that could be anywhere on the Mediterranean. Something feels off.

Nothing is off. Agadir is simply Morocco's youngest city. On 29 February 1960, at 11:40pm, an earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale destroyed the city in 15 seconds. Between 12,000 and 15,000 people died — roughly a third of the population. The old medina, the Kasbah on the hill, the dense residential quarters of Founti and Talborjt — all gone.

King Mohammed V declared: *If destiny decided to destroy Agadir, its reconstruction depends on our will and our faith.* The new city was rebuilt two kilometres south of the epicentre, designed by a team of Moroccan and French architects including Jean-François Zevaco and Elie Azagury, with consultation from Le Corbusier. They built for earthquakes this time. Wide streets. Low-rise reinforced concrete. Seismic standards that didn't exist before 1960.

This is why Agadir has no ancient medina, no centuries-old riads, no winding derbs. The city you see is 65 years old. The only remnant of old Agadir is the restored Kasbah wall on the hilltop — Agadir Oufella — which reopened in 2024 after a major heritage restoration project. The inscription above its gate still reads, in Arabic and Dutch: *God, the Nation, the King.*

What Agadir does have: a 10-kilometre beach, one of the longest in Morocco. A modern souk — Souk El Had — that covers several city blocks but was purpose-built, not grown organically over centuries. A thriving port that was the world's largest sardine port in the 1980s. And roughly 300 days of sunshine a year.

Visitors who come expecting Marrakech will be disoriented. Visitors who come expecting a beach city with excellent seafood, a functioning modern infrastructure, and a gateway to the Souss Valley and the surf coast — that's exactly what Agadir is.