Erfoud

Erfoud, listed as Arfoud in the official statistics, is a municipality in Errachidia province, which belongs to the Draa-Tafilalet region.¹ In the 2024 census the municipality had 28,912 inhabitants in 6,309 households.² The Arfoud district also includes the municipalities of Es-Sifa, Aarab Sebbah Ziz, Aarab Sebbah Gheris and Fezna, with 36,227 inhabitants between them; Errachidia province as a whole counted 427,572.³

Erfoud is the venue of the Salon International des Dattes au Maroc (SIDATTES). Its 14th edition ran from 29 October to 2 November 2025 under the patronage of King Mohammed VI; it is organised by the Association du Salon International des Dattes au Maroc under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture, with support from the agency for the development of oasis and argan zones (ANDZOA).⁴ On 40,000 square metres more than 220 exhibitors showed their products, 94,646 visitors were counted, and exhibitors' sales exceeded 38 million dirhams. The partner country was the United Arab Emirates.⁵

At the close of the 2025 fair, figures were given for the country's date growing as a whole: more than 160,000 tonnes were expected for the 2025/26 season, 55 per cent more than the year before and the highest since 2008. Date palms cover almost 70,000 hectares, 60,000 of them in traditional oases; the sector yields nearly 2 billion dirhams and some 3.6 million working days a year. The Draa-Tafilalet region is the country's leading growing area.⁶

The 15th edition of the fair is scheduled for 28 October to 1 November 2026, under the theme “Palmier dattier et innovation: opportunités pour le développement territorial intégré”. The organisers expect more than 100,000 visitors; the plans include areas for the growing regions and for international participants, a date market, traditional products, farm supplies and machinery, and livestock.⁷

The stone traded as “Marbre d'Erfoud” is a fossil-rich limestone containing trilobites, goniatites and crinoids.⁸ According to a report by Médias24, thousands of craftsmen in Erfoud specialise in quarrying and working it: large blocks are extracted, sawn into slabs and made into vanity tops, basins, wall tiles, sculptures and even bathtubs.⁹

In 2009 the magazine Saudi Aramco World described Erfoud as lying amid Morocco's fossil beds, a place where middlemen gather on Thursdays and Sundays to buy the finds of diggers and preparers.¹⁰ Polished slabs of black limestone with the cone-shaped shells of Orthoceras, a nautiloid, are sold as souvenirs. The article put the value of Morocco's fossil trade at some 40 million dollars a year.¹¹

About 20 kilometres south-east of Erfoud, on the eastern flank of the Anti-Atlas, lies the Hamar Laghdad ridge.¹² More than fifty conical Devonian limestone mounds rise there, none higher than 55 metres; most belong to the Emsian Kess-Kess Formation. Their origin is now explained by hydrothermal vents on the former sea floor, above a base of basaltic lava. The mounds were first mentioned in 1934.¹³

In February 2013 the Austrian Space Forum held a month-long simulated Mars mission in the desert near Erfoud.¹⁴ It tested the spacesuit simulators Aouda.X and Aouda.S, operating procedures and instruments, with a ten-minute communication delay to mission control; more than 20 international partners took part, among them the Ibn Battuta Centre in Marrakesh.¹⁵