Sidi Ifni

Sidi Ifni lies on the Atlantic coast, about 170 kilometres south of Agadir.¹ Along its entire length the coast here is lined with high cliffs, fronted by surf that is barely passable.² The town was laid out on the left bank of the Assif Ifni: boats could be hauled up onto the beach at its mouth, and at this point the old wave-cut platform was wide enough for an airfield.³

In 2024 the municipality of Sidi Ifni had 22,696 inhabitants and the province of the same name 104,601.⁴ Under Decree No. 2-09-319 of 11 June 2009, Sidi Ifni became a province in its own right within the administrative division of the Kingdom⁵, and since 2015 it has belonged to the Guelmim-Oued Noun region.⁶ Only 34 per cent of the province's inhabitants live in towns, the lowest share in the region.⁷

The town and its surroundings are the territory of the Berber tribe of the Aït Baâmrane (Aït-Bou-Amrane).⁸ In everyday life 86.3 per cent of the province's inhabitants speak Tachelhit and 46.7 per cent Darija; in Guelmim province, at 45.7 per cent, Tachelhit is considerably less common.⁹

The town follows the principles of Spanish colonial planning: dead-straight streets radiating from a square lined with public buildings.¹⁰ Later the town was given a cable car for unloading ships anchored offshore; the airfield was modernised and its runways lengthened, and new buildings went up on the right bank of the Assif Ifni.¹¹ Under an agreement signed in Fez on 4 January 1969 the territory returned to Morocco, the town itself on 30 June 1969.¹²

The port has been in operation since 1989 and has been extended several times, most substantially in works completed in 2002; in May 2006 it was transferred to the then port authority, ODEP.¹³ Its protective structures are 2,340 metres long. Vessels berth along 400 metres of quay in 4 to 5 metres of water, and there is also a 100-metre floating pontoon for small-scale fishing; the port area covers 35 hectares of land and 17 hectares of water.¹⁴

Fishing is the main activity in the port and, according to the port authority, the town's principal source of income.¹⁵ The coastal fleet includes sardine boats, trawlers and longliners, alongside small-scale fishing with around 350 boats.¹⁶

The hills around Ifni are covered by a dense euphorbia steppe, including the cushion-shaped Euphorbia echinus and the tree-like Euphorbia regis-jubae; scattered argan trees stand in the fields.¹⁷ Barley is the only cereal grown. Almond, apricot and fig trees often grow on terraces supported by dry-stone walls, and goat herding predominates.¹⁸

The climate is arid. According to an estimate in the Encyclopédie berbère, the roughly 100 millimetres of rain a year are supplemented by about 120 millimetres from fog, which forms over the cool waters of the Canary Current and covers a coastal strip 5 to 10 kilometres wide. The trade wind brings humid air, moderate temperatures and little difference between day and night.¹⁹ The nearest station with WMO climate normals is inland at Guelmim, which records an average of 119 millimetres of precipitation a year.²⁰