Asilah

Asilah lies on the Atlantic coast, 40 kilometres south of Tangier and 30 kilometres north of Larache.¹ The municipality belongs to the prefecture of Tangier-Assilah, which together with Tetouan, Larache, Ouezzane and other prefectures and provinces makes up the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region.²

At the 2024 census Asilah had 36,039 inhabitants, up from 31,147 ten years earlier; the prefecture of Tangier-Assilah as a whole had 1,494,413 in 2024.³ In 1986 the geographer Jean-François Troin gave Asilah’s population as 18,781 and described the town as the southernmost satellite of Tangier.⁴

Accounts of its origins differ: some attribute its founding to the Phoenicians, others place it in Roman times. Later, descendants of Moulay Idriss I settled in Asilah, and in the Middle Ages the town was a trading post visited by merchants from Genoa, Catalonia and Majorca.⁵

In 1471 Asilah came under Portuguese rule and in 1578 under Spanish rule; in 1589 the town returned to Morocco through an agreement between Philip II and Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur. From 1911 to 1956 it was part of the Spanish zone.⁶ The fortifications that enclose the medina date from the time of the Portuguese trading post.⁷

The restoration of the old town was initiated by the cultural association Al-Mouhit with Mohamed Benaïssa and Mohamed Melehi; the clients were the residents and the municipality. The Portuguese fortifications and a palace from the early 20th century were restored, shops moved to the foot of the walls, lanes were paved and walls were decorated with paintings by local artists. The project, covering 90,000 square metres, received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in the 1987–1989 cycle.⁸

The Fondation du Forum d’Assilah was established in 1978 and held its first mural painting workshop in the spring of that year.⁹ Its international cultural moussem is held under the patronage of the King; in 2025 the autumn session of the 46th edition ran from 26 September to 12 October, with colloquia, workshops and exhibitions, among other venues at the Centre Hassan II des rencontres internationales and the Palais de la Culture.¹⁰ The summer session of the 47th edition, from 28 June to 5 July 2026, was devoted to the visual arts and brought together fifteen artists from Morocco, Syria, Spain and Belgium for mural painting; the autumn session was scheduled for 2 to 18 October.¹¹

The fishing port and marina was built in the middle of the town in 1992 and protects the old medina from coastal erosion. The basin for pleasure craft holds 100 boats; the port’s main purpose is fishing.¹² Besides fishing, the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes Asilah as a summer resort and a market for grain, cattle and sheep.¹³

Asilah has a junction on the motorway from the port of Tanger Med to Rabat; the section from Larache to Sidi El Yamani with this exit has been open since 1 September 1999, and the stretch on to Tangier since 5 July 2005.¹⁴ The regional road RP 2 connects the port with Tangier.¹⁵

At the Larache weather station, 47 metres above sea level, mean daily maximum temperatures rise from 16.7 °C in January to 28.7 °C in August. Of 700.5 millimetres of annual precipitation, an average of 0.8 millimetres falls in July and 129.1 millimetres in November (WMO climate normals 1991–2020).¹⁶