Morocco in other languages: exonyms, flag and the 12 regions in Arabic

Maghrib, Marrakesh and Fès: three roots for one country

The Arabic name al-Maġrib means the west, the land of the sunset. Arab geographers called the far end of North Africa al-Maġrib al-Aqṣā, the farthest west, to set it apart from the middle and the nearer west further east. The official title المملكة المغربية, al-Mamlakâẗu l-Maġribīyâ, is the western kingdom.

European languages took a different city as their model. Spanish Marruecos comes from Marrakesh, capital of the Almoravids, the Almohads and the Saadians, and English Morocco is an anglicised form of it; the change of the first vowel is usually put down to the word Moor. Dutch and German write Marokko, French Maroc, Portuguese Marrocos. Persian, Urdu and Punjabi still call the whole country مراکش (Marākaš), and Arabic lists مراكش beside المغرب.

Turkish has a third root. Fas, the Turkish name, is the city of Fès, the medieval capital, and Kurdish Fas and Laz ჶასი (Fasi) follow it. Armenian writes Մարոկկո (Marokko) or Մարոկո (Maroko); Georgian მაროკო. In Tifinagh the table gives ⵍⵎⵖⵔⵉⴱ, a borrowing of the Arabic name, and ⴰⵎⵕⵕⵓⴽ (Amṛṛuk), built on Marrakesh.

Rabat, the fortress, and Casablanca, the white house

Rabat takes its name from الرباط, ar-Ribāṭ, a fortified base. The full form رباط الفتح, Ribāṭ al-Fatḥ, the stronghold of victory, goes back to the Almohads, who made the place a naval base in 1170. The Tamazight form ⵕⴱⴰⵟ (Ṛbaṭ) and most foreign names keep the same consonants.

Casablanca and the Arabic الدار البيضاء, ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, both mean the white house. The tables show both lines: Persian and Pashto list the Arabic form beside Casablanca, Turkish has Darülbeyza and Kurdish Darulbeyza, Tajik gives Касабланка and Дорулбайзо side by side, and Greek in its learned spelling keeps Ντὰρ-ἐλ-Μπέϊντα next to Κασαμπλάνκα. The Tamazight name of the city is ⴰⵏⴼⴰ (Anfa).