Essaouira Mogador is a town at the Atlantic coast of Morocco
Essaouira

 
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The Medina of Essaouira

Scala the Port The Jews and the "Mellah" Bab Doukkala South Bastion

The Danish Consulate Orson Welles Square The French consulat Maps of the medina of Essaouira.
Walls and Gates
Doors
Mosques
Zaouias
Consulates
Sights

Location of sights on the Map of Essaouira Medina

For specific details look also
at the interactive Google Map

Names of streets and places

Some suggestions for
walking tours in the medina
you find in
Eco Friendly Tours

The Medina

The old town, the "Medina" of Essaouira is walled with several gates. The most precious part is the Kasbah where there was the Sultanate, court house and where we find the old European and Brasilian consulates since the glorious times when Essaouira was a prosperous trading port.


The geometrical plan of the medina was influenced by European townplanning.
The quarters are separetad by the 2 main axis going from Bab El Menzah to Bab Doukkala and from Bab Marrakech to Bab Al Bahar.
When Mellah Qadim (old) was too small there was a new place for the Jews to live at the north corner of the medina at Bab Doukkala.
Residential aeras in Derb Ahl Agadir, Bani Antar and Bouakhir are influenced by traditional Arabic planning with narrow streets and dead end alleys (derbs) and theese blocks were inhabited by military contingents,
including 'abîd al-Bukhârî (the Sultan's Black slave soldiers) and soldiers from Agadir who were permanently stationed in Mogador.


See also
Names of Streets and places

Bab Doukkala was the main door to the north to Safi (the region Doukkala) and Bab Marrakech to the east the road from Marrakech and Agadir and the caravan trade from Africa.
The Medina was fortified with the 2 Scalas under the reign of Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah who founded the new city of Essaouira 1776.
Visitors coming by boat entered the medina by the magnificient gateway, Bab El Mersa of Scala the Port and through this door all export and import passed during the golden age of trade.

More in: Walls and gates

Bab el mersa the magnificient gateway of Scala the Port

Bab El Mersa the magnificient gateway
of Scala the Port

South Bastion

South Bastion

The remparts of the medina at the Atlantic coast
with Bab Al Bahar - an entry to the medina from the sea.

 

See also: Old maps of Essaouira and its region (Internal link)

 
 

Maps
The Medina