Targuist

Targuist belongs to the province of Al Hoceima in the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region.¹ In 1959 the geographer G. Maurer wrote that in the middle of the high northern chain of the Rif there are areas of gentler relief, basins that attract people; as an example he named the basin of Targuist.²

South of the northern limestone ranges, according to Maurer, the mountains consist of a thick series of schists and sandstones. Sandstones and quartzites form ridges running east to west, with depressions hollowed out of the schist between them; one of these ridges reaches 2,450 metres at Jbel Tidirhine, the highest point of the Rif. Within a few kilometres from west to east the vegetation changes from the dense cedar forest of the Ktama to sparse steppe.³

In 2004 Targuist had 11,560 inhabitants and in 2014 13,390, a growth of 1.48 per cent a year.⁴ In 2024 there were 14,638 in 3,756 households, compared with 2,969 households ten years earlier; the population most recently grew by 0.90 per cent a year and the number of households by 2.38 per cent.⁵ Targuist is thus one of the eight municipalities in the province that grew between 2014 and 2024.⁶

In 2014 Targuist was one of the five urban municipalities among the province’s 36 municipalities.⁷ A district is also named after the town, the Cercle de Targuist, which had 50,317 inhabitants in 2014, compared with 52,984 in 2004.⁸

At the 2014 census, 51.4 per cent of people in Targuist said they spoke only Darija in everyday life, 46.2 per cent Darija and Amazigh and 1.0 per cent Amazigh only. In Imzouren at the same time only 4.9 per cent spoke Darija exclusively.⁹ For the province as a whole, the 2024 census recorded 73.9 per cent Darija and 53.6 per cent Tarifit.¹⁰

In 2014, 82.9 per cent of households in Targuist lived in a Moroccan-style house and 8.9 per cent in a flat; 60.7 per cent were owners and 27.4 per cent tenants.¹¹ The province of Al Hoceima fell from 399,654 to 371,527 inhabitants between 2014 and 2024, while its urban share rose to 37.4 per cent.¹²

Targuist is the seat of a court of first instance, which held its first trial by video link in May 2020.¹³ The Al Hoceima Manarat Al Moutawassit programme includes the opening of the Targuist landfill, which is built to international standards.¹⁴

The nearest station with WMO normals is Al Hoceima on the coast, 12 metres above sea level. There, mean daily maximum temperatures rise from 17.4 °C in January to 28.9 °C in August; of 335.4 millimetres of annual precipitation, an average of 1.7 millimetres falls in July and 45.8 millimetres in November (WMO climate normals 1991–2020).¹⁵ Targuist itself lies in the mountains, not on the coast.¹⁶