Portuguese City of Mazagan (El Jadida) Gallery

Portuguese City, El Jadida old town

This old Portuguese town, often known as the CitA© Portugaise, has a sleepy but atmospheric Unesco World Heritage medina. A lack of investment has helped maintain the integrity of the town's rambling alleys and ramparts. For much of the year El Jadida is a quiet backwater, disturbed only by the crowds of Moroccans flocking to its beautiful beaches and strolling its boulevards in July and August.In 1506 the Portuguese built a fortress here to protect their ships and baptised it Mazagan, which soon developed into the country's most important trading post. Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah seized Mazagan from the Portuguese following a siege in 1769, but the Portuguese blew up most of the fort before leaving. Most of the new settlers preferred to live in the new town and the citadel remained a ruin until the early 19th century when Sultan And er Rahman resettled some of the Jews of Azemmour in old Mazagan, and renamed the town El-Jadida, 'the New One' in Arabic.The large and influential Jewish community soon grew rich on trade with the interior, and unlike most other Moroccan cities, there was no mellah (Jewish quarter); the Jews mixed with the general populace and an attitude of easy tolerance was established in the city. During the French protectorate the town became an administrative centre and a beach resort, but its port gradually lost out to Safi and Casablanca.Over the last few years, both Moroccans and foreigners have started buying up property in the old walled town, including the old colonial church. Just north of the town, on a gorgeous stretch of beach, is the recently opened tourist resort of Mazagan, which includes a golf course, casino, spa and large resort hotel. The old town of El-Jadida in the next few years will be given a new, if very different, lease of life

© dwayne miras photography