Tafraoute

Tafraoute (officially Tafraout) lies in the western Anti-Atlas¹, in Tiznit province² in the Souss-Massa region.³ The range stretches for 660 kilometres from the Atlantic to the Hamada du Guir, is on average only about 100 kilometres wide and reaches 2,712 metres in the Jbel Sarhro.⁴ In 2024 the municipality of Tafraout had 6,124 inhabitants and Tiznit province 198,542.⁵

The Encyclopédie berbère calls Tafraoute the best-known mountain oasis of the western Anti-Atlas; to the north and west it continues into the green Ameln valley. Its villages, with their brightly painted façades, sit in palm groves along a line of springs at the foot of the pink quartzite escarpment of Jbel Lkst.⁶

The slopes are terraced right up to their upper edges, with dry-stone walls that follow the contour lines. In the irrigated valleys figs, olives, apricots, almonds, pomegranates and date palms grow, along with maize and vegetables; in summer, sheep and goats are driven up to the high pastures.⁷ In the granite inliers of the western Anti-Atlas, the Tazeroualt and the Kerdous, inselbergs, rock pinnacles and fields of granite boulders shape the landscape.⁸ In 1984 the Belgian artist Jean Vérame painted a rocky landscape near Tafraoute in blue, purple and red for his work “Les Roches Bleues”.⁹

Since 2012 “Amande de Tafraout” has been a protected geographical indication. The application was made by the producers' group Taddarte Nlouz; the area covers municipalities in the provinces of Tiznit, Chtouka-Aït Baha and Taroudant, including Tafraout and Amelen.¹⁰ The trees, of the species Prunus amygdalus, must be grown from seed and planted on terraces on the slopes that capture rainwater and slow erosion; they are mostly grown without irrigation. The almonds are small, weighing 0.4 to 2.7 grams per fruit.¹¹

The people of Tafraoute traditionally celebrate the almond blossom. For this the Association Louz Tafraout organises an almond festival, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Tiznit province and the municipality among others; the ninth edition took place from 28 February to 3 March 2019 and combined the festival with the “Idernan” custom.¹²

In the western Anti-Atlas the influence of the ocean extends over only a limited coastal strip; to the east and south it quickly becomes drier, and precipitation increases by an average of 9.5 millimetres for every 100 metres of altitude.¹³ The nearest station with WMO climate normals is on the coast at Agadir-Inezgane: it records an average of 232 millimetres a year, and mean daily maximum temperatures range from 21.2 degrees in January to 27.0 degrees in August.¹⁴