Morocco

Arab, MoroccanJPIMBGRN

Population

~25,030,000 (24.6-25.2 million)

Language

Arabic, Moroccan

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Throughout Morocco proper: the Atlantic plains and cities (Casablanca, Rabat-Salé, Kénitra, El Jadida, Safi), Fès and Meknès, Marrakech and the Haouz plain, the Gharb and Loukkos, the eastern plateaux and Oujda, and every other city

Moroccan Arabs are the Arabic-speaking majority of Morocco, about 25 million people who speak Darija, a Maghrebi Arabic full of Amazigh, French and Spanish words that speakers of eastern Arabic struggle to follow. They descend from Arab tribes who came with the Islamic conquest and the Banu Hilal and Maqil migrations, and from Amazigh and Andalusian families who took up Arabic over the centuries, so that many have Amazigh grandparents. They fill the Atlantic plains and the great cities, from Casablanca and Rabat to Fès and Marrakech, and share a culture of couscous on Fridays, mint tea, medina life and saints' festivals with every other Moroccan. Sunni Islam of the Maliki school, led by the king as Commander of the Faithful, shapes public life, and leaving it brings family rejection.

Amazigh, Southern ShilhaJPIMBGRN

Population

5,070,000

Language

Tachelhit

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Souss plain, western High Atlas, Anti-Atlas and Jbel Siroua (Souss-Massa, western Marrakech-Safi, Ouarzazate, Sidi Ifni and Guelmim), with Soussi migrants in Casablanca, Marrakech, Rabat and every large city

The Shilha, or Ishelhin, are Morocco's largest Amazigh people: about five million Moroccans, one in seven, use their language, Tachelhit, every day. Their homeland is the Souss plain around Agadir, the western High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas, where villages of stone and rammed earth climb terraced slopes and, in the Anti-Atlas, gather around fortified collective granaries in which each family kept its grain and papers in its own locked cell. Women of the Souss press argan oil from a tree that grows almost nowhere else, and the dances and sung poetry of village festivals still carry the language. The September 2023 earthquake destroyed thousands of earthen homes in Shilha villages of the High Atlas. For a century Soussi men have left the mountains to keep corner grocery shops in Casablanca and every other city, sending money home; many of their children now speak only Arabic.

Amazigh, Central-AtlasJPIMB

Population

2,390,000

Language

Central Atlas Tamazight

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Middle Atlas, central and eastern High Atlas, upper Moulouya and the pre-Saharan valleys (Khénifra, Midelt, Ifrane, Sefrou, Boulemane, Khémisset, Béni Mellal, Errachidia, Tinghir, Taza and Figuig provinces), with migrants in Meknès, Fès, Rabat-Salé and Casablanca

The Central Atlas Amazigh are the Tamazight-speaking mountain people of the Middle Atlas, the eastern High Atlas and the upper Moulouya valley, about 2.4 million who use their language every day. They live in tribes such as the Zayane around Khénifra, the Beni Mguild around Azrou, the Zemmour of the Khémisset plateau and the Ait Hadiddou of Imilchil, in villages snowbound for part of the winter, and many still move sheep between winter and summer pastures. Their speech became the base of Standard Moroccan Tamazight, official since 2011, yet in towns such as Khénifra, Azrou and Midelt most young families now speak Arabic at home. Women weave the thick wool carpets named after their tribes, and every September the moussem of Imilchil draws Ait Hadiddou families to a fair long famous for its betrothals.

JebalaJPIMBGRN

Population

~1,310,000 (1.3-1.7 million)

Language

Arabic, Moroccan

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Western Rif hills of northwestern Morocco: Chefchaouen (west and south of the Ghomara), Ouezzane, the countryside of Tétouan, Fahs-Anjra and Tangier, Larache's Beni Arous hills, northern Taounate and the Branes of Taza

The Jebala are the Arabic-speaking mountain people of Morocco's western Rif, more than forty tribes descended from Berber hill tribes and Andalusian refugees who took up Arabic centuries before most of the countryside. Their Jebli speech is an old 'mountain' Arabic full of Berber sounds and words, quite unlike the Bedouin-based Darija of the plains. They live in clustered villages of pitched-roof houses in the wettest hills of the country, around Chefchaouen, Ouezzane and northern Taounate, growing olives, figs and cereals. Women wear wide straw hats hung with wool pompoms and red-and-white striped skirts, and every tribe keeps a saint's shrine: the tomb of Moulay Abdessalam Ben Mashish on Jbel Alam draws pilgrims from across Morocco.

Amazigh, RifJPIMBGRN

Population

~1,165,000 (est. 1.15-1.18 million)

Language

Central Atlas Tamazight

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Rif Mountains and Mediterranean coast of north-eastern Morocco: Nador, Driouch and Al Hoceima provinces, the Beni Snassen hills of Berkane, and migrants in Tangier, Tetouan, Oujda and other cities

The Riffians are the Amazigh people of the Rif Mountains and the Mediterranean coast of north-eastern Morocco, from Al Hoceima east through Driouch and Nador towards the Algerian border. Nearly 1.2 million use their Tarifit language every day, most of them in those three provinces; perhaps as many again are of Riffian descent but now speak only Moroccan Arabic. Their history is one of resistance, from Abd el-Krim's Republic of the Rif, crushed in 1926 with poison gas, to the Hirak protests that filled the streets of Al Hoceima in 2016-2017. Weddings still ring with izran, short sung verses traded between singers to the beat of a frame drum, and nearly every family has relatives in the Netherlands, Belgium or Spain whose remittances keep the region's towns alive.

Amazigh, AttaJPGRN

Population

195,000

Language

Tamazight, Central Atlas

Religion

Islam

Location

Jbel Saghro (Tinghir and Zagora provinces), the Ait Khebbash country of Merzouga and Taouz, and Ait Atta ksour of the middle and lower Draa valley and the Tafilalt oasis; Draa-Tafilalet region

The Ait Atta are a great Amazigh tribal confederation of south-eastern Morocco, about 195,000 people living in and around the volcanic Jbel Saghro, the dunes of Merzouga and the palm oases of the Draa and Tafilalt that their warriors took over between the 17th and 19th centuries. They speak their own Tamazight dialect and still trace their descent to five 'fifths' that once chose a supreme chief each spring, by rotation, at their mountain capital Igherm Amazdar. They were the last Moroccans to submit to French rule, after the siege of Bougafer in 1933 under Assou Oubasslam. Women's indigo dress, silver jewellery from Tazzarine and the ahidus line dance mark their festivals, and in Imider Ait Atta villagers held the longest protest camp in Morocco's recent history, from 2011, against a silver mine that drained their wells.

Amazigh, DrawaJPGRN

Population

186,000

Language

Tachelhit

Religion

Islam

Location

Draa valley from Agdz to Mhamid el Ghizlane (Mezguita, Tinzouline, Ternata, Fezouata, Ktaoua and Mhamid oases), Zagora province, Draa-Tafilalet region

The Drawa are the people of the Draa valley, a 200-kilometre ribbon of palm groves and earthen ksour running from Agdz to Mhamid el Ghizlane on the edge of the Sahara, about 186,000 people. Most are dark-skinned Haratin, descended partly from ancient Saharan farmers and partly from West Africans brought across the desert as slaves, who for centuries tended the palms as sharecroppers for Ait Atta, Arab and sharifian landowners living in the same villages; marriage across that line is still rare. Downstream they speak a Moroccan Arabic close to the Hassaniya of the desert, while upstream around Agdz and Mezguita a Berber speech akin to Tashelhit survives. Tamegroute, with its Nasiriyya Sufi lodge, library of old manuscripts and green-glazed pottery, is the valley's spiritual heart, and years of drought and falling water tables are now emptying the oases as the young leave for the cities.

Amazigh, GhomaraJPIMBGRN

Population

~123,000 (85,000-123,000)

Language

Moroccan Arabic

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Mediterranean slope of the western Rif in Chefchaouen province, between the Oued Laou and the Ouringa: Bou Ahmed, Steha, Bni Bouzra, Bni Mansour, Bni Selmane, Bni Rzine, Bni Smih

The Ghomara are a confederation of nine tribes on the Mediterranean slope of the western Rif east of Chefchaouen, Berber hill people whose name medieval writers already used. Most switched to Arabic centuries ago, but in Beni Bouzra and part of Beni Mansour about 10,000 people still speak Ghomara Berber, a small endangered language they call shelha and switch out of with strangers. Families farm wheat, barley and orchards on terraced slopes and, since the late twentieth century, fish from the coves around Steha and Sidi Yahya Aarab. Each summer a Ghomara festival on the beach at Steha shows the tribe's produce, a traditional wedding and races of local fishing boats.

Amazigh, FilalaJPGRN

Population

121,000

Language

Tachelhit

Religion

Islam

Location

Tafilalt oasis of the lower Ziz and Gheris: Rissani, Erfoud, Jorf, Aoufous, Arab Sebbah Ziz and Gheris, Es-Sfalat, Bni M'hamed Sijelmassa, Es-Sifa, Fezna; Errachidia province, Draa-Tafilalet region

The Filala are the people of the Tafilalt, the great palm oasis where the Ziz and Gheris rivers fade into the Sahara around Rissani and Erfoud, about 121,000 people. They are a mix of sharifian families, among them the kin of the Alaouite dynasty that set out from Rissani in the 17th century to rule Morocco, Arab tribes such as the Arab Sebbah, and dark-skinned Haratin who for centuries farmed the palm groves as sharecroppers. Almost all speak Moroccan Arabic, though Sijilmasa, the medieval gold-trade city whose ruins lie beside Rissani, was founded by Berbers. The mausoleum of Moulay Ali Cherif, Rissani's great weekly market and the prized dates of the oasis anchor their pride, while drought and sinking water tables push the young towards the cities.

Amazigh, SenhajaJPGRN

Population

~86,000 (85,000-97,000)

Language

Senhaja Berber

Religion

Islam

Location

Central Rif, Al Hoceima province: Ketama and Issaguen, the Targuist hinterland (Bni Bounsar, Zarkt, Bni Bchir, Taghzout, Bni Ahmed Imoukzan) and the Ait Seddat and Ait Khennus country

The Senhaja de Srair are Berber-speaking tribes of the high central Rif around Ketama, Issaguen and Targuist, who speak their own small language, called Chelha by its speakers, distinct from the Tarifit of their eastern neighbours and the Ghomara speech to the west. The census offers no box for it, so most speakers are recorded only as Arabic speakers, and their own association warns that the language is disappearing. Their cedar-forested ridges are the historic heart of Morocco's cannabis growing, and Ketama's name is known far beyond the country. A cultural association in Targuist publishes the magazine Tidighin, named after the region's highest peak.

SahrawiJPIMB

Population

~85,000 (est. 75,000-100,000)

Language

Hassaniyya

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Southern Morocco proper: Guelmim-Oued Noun (Assa-Zag, Tan-Tan, Guelmim) and Tarfaya, with smaller numbers, many of them students, in Agadir, Marrakech, Rabat and Casablanca

North of the Western Sahara border, in the Oued Noun and the Tarfaya strip, Sahrawi tribes have lived for generations on the edge of the desert: the Tekna confederation, whose lands straddle the border, and families of the Reguibat. About 85,000 of them speak Hassaniya, the Sahrawis' Arabic, nearly all in Assa-Zag, where almost two in three people use it, and in Tan-Tan, Guelmim and Tarfaya. Each year the Tan-Tan moussem gathers the desert tribes with their camels, tents and poets, and the zawiya of Assa holds its own festival at the Prophet's birthday. These Sahrawis are Moroccan citizens with no other home, most of them bilingual in Hassaniya and Darija; many have relatives in the territory to the south and in the refugee camps near Tindouf, and Sahrawi students form small, closely watched communities at the universities of Agadir and Marrakech.

Deaf MoroccanJPIMBGRN

Population

65,000

Language

Moroccan Sign Language

Religion

Sunni Islam (Maliki school)

Location

Throughout Morocco proper, most in the large cities around schools for the deaf and associations (Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Fès, Tangier and Tetouan, Agadir)

Morocco's Deaf community, about 65,000 people, shares Moroccan Sign Language, which took shape after 1987 at a school for the deaf in Tetouan, where signs brought by American volunteers mixed with local signs. Deaf Moroccans come from Arab, Amazigh and Sahrawi families alike, and meet in schools for the deaf run largely by associations, in clubs and in small groups such as a Middle Atlas association that posts signing lessons online. Their sign language still varies from city to city and has no dictionary in common use, fewer than 50 professional interpreters serve the whole country, and most Deaf adults cannot read. Sermons, Quran classes and most television are not signed, so the faith of their families reaches them mostly through what they see.

Berber, TaznatitJP

Population

~10,000 (est. 7,500-15,000)

Language

Taznatit

Religion

Sunni Islam (Maliki)

Location

Figuig oasis and the ksour of Iche and Aïn Chaïr, Figuig Province, Oriental region; families from Figuig in Bouarfa and Oujda

The Taznatit Berbers are a small Amazigh community inhabiting the ancient Figuig oasis in Morocco's far eastern Oriental region, just 7 km from the Algerian border. They speak a Zenati Berber variety that links them linguistically to oasis communities across southwestern Algeria rather than to Morocco's three major Berber groups. Figuig's seven fortified ksour, built from mudbrick and stone, shelter a declining population that sustains itself through date palm cultivation irrigated by an ingenious underground khettara channel system where water rights are allocated by time rather than volume. The community's historical roots in Ibadi Islam -- a school that is neither Sunni nor Shia -- distinguish them from mainstream Moroccan religious practice, though most have now adopted the Maliki Sunni orthodoxy of the Moroccan state.

Jewish, Moroccan (Morocco)JPIMB

Population

~2,000-2,500

Language

Judeo-Moroccan Arabic

Religion

Judaism

Location

Casablanca (primary), Rabat, Marrakech, Meknes, Tangier, Fez

Morocco's Jews are one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, present for more than 2,000 years, and today the largest left in the Arab world, though only about 2,000 to 2,500 remain of the 250,000 to 350,000 of the 1950s. Most live in Casablanca, where synagogues, Jewish schools, kosher restaurants and the Arab world's only Jewish museum still operate, with small communities in Rabat, Marrakech, Meknes, Tangier and Fez. They enjoy a protected status under the king, who counts them among his subjects as Commander of the Faithful, and Jewish courts still rule on their family matters. At Mimouna, the night after Passover, Jewish families open their homes to Muslim neighbours for pancakes and honey, and each year thousands of Moroccan Jews from Israel, France and Canada return for pilgrimages (hiloula) to the tombs of the community's saints.

SenegaleseIMBDiscovery

Population

25,900

Language

French

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Casablanca, Rabat-Salé, Fes, Meknes, Marrakech, Agadir, Kenitra and Tangier

Senegalese are the largest foreign nationality in Morocco, about 26,000 people, and their ties to the kingdom are older than any migration: the Tijani Sufi order to which millions of Senegalese belong has its founder's shrine in Fez, and Senegalese disciples travel there every Ramadan and for the Prophet's birthday. Students on Moroccan scholarships, traders and, more and more, young workers in restaurants, homes, farms and street trade make up the community, most of them Wolof speakers, with Fula, Serer and Jola among them. In Casablanca's old medina a cluster of Senegalese shops and eateries is known as Little Dakar, and Mouride disciples gather in Rabat each year to chant the poems of their founder, Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba. Senegalese enter Morocco without a visa, and for some it is also a stop on the sea route to Spain.

IvorianIMBDiscovery

Population

24,300

Language

French

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Casablanca, Rabat-Salé, Marrakech, Agadir and Tangier

Ivorians are Morocco's second-largest foreign nationality, about 24,000 people, and, unlike most migrant communities, most of them are women: six in ten Ivorians in Morocco are women, many working as nannies, cleaners and carers in Moroccan homes. Others are students, traders between Abidjan and Casablanca, and young people who left after Côte d'Ivoire's political crises, some hoping to reach Europe. Christians and Muslims are both numerous among them, and Ivorian believers fill many of the pews of Morocco's Catholic and Protestant churches and migrant house churches. Ivorian eateries serve attiéké and grilled fish in Casablanca and Marrakech, and during the 2025-26 Africa Cup of Nations a fan village in Marrakech became a meeting place for Ivorians from across the country.

Sub-Saharan African MigrantsDiscovery

Population

~22,000-23,700

Language

Various (French as lingua franca; Wolof, Bambara, Malinke, Soussou, Igbo, Lingala among others)

Religion

Sunni Islam (various schools and Sufi brotherhoods)

Location

Casablanca, Rabat-Salé, Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier, Fes, Oujda and Nador

Beyond the Senegalese, Ivorians, Guineans and Malians, about 22,000 to 24,000 other sub-Saharan Africans live in Morocco, from the Republic of Congo, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Chad, Togo, Benin, the Central African Republic and a score of other countries. Most came in the last decade as students, workers, refugees or migrants hoping to reach Europe, and they live in the working-class quarters of Casablanca, Rabat and Tangier, while near Nador some have camped in the forests before trying to cross into Melilla. Many are Christians from Central Africa, and with other African migrants they make up most of the congregations of Morocco's Catholic and Protestant churches and the Pentecostal house churches they have founded. Shared experience of racism and insecure papers has given rise to migrant-led councils and collectives that speak for all sub-Saharans in Morocco.

FrenchJPGRNDiscovery

Population

20,000

Language

French

Religion

Christianity - Roman Catholicism

Location

Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier and Fès; retirees along the Atlantic coast (Essaouira, Taghazout) and in Marrakech

About 20,000 French citizens live in Morocco, its largest European community and its third-largest foreign one after the Senegalese and Ivorians. Most of the settlers of the French protectorate (1912-1956) left after independence; today's French are managers and engineers of French firms in Casablanca and Tangier, teachers in one of the largest French school networks abroad, aid and embassy staff in Rabat, and retirees and riad owners in Marrakech, Agadir and Essaouira. Their numbers have held steady for a decade while other foreigners have multiplied. Most are secular in practice, and a Catholic minority fills parishes such as Casablanca's Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes beside African students and migrants.

GuineanIMBDiscovery

Population

6,700

Language

French

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Casablanca, Rabat-Salé (Takaddoum), Tangier, Fes, Marrakech and Agadir

Guineans in Morocco number about 6,700, mostly young Muslim men with fewer women, from Conakry and from the highlands of the Fouta Djallon, many of them Fula. Several hundred are students on government scholarships, who have marched on their embassy in Rabat over unpaid grants; others came as workers or asylum seekers, and after the Sudanese and Syrians, Guineans are the largest group registered with the UN refugee agency in Morocco. Many try the sea crossing to Spain, and in April 2025 Morocco flew 113 Guineans home after their boat sank. Guinean associations in Rabat help newcomers, and more than 6,500 Guineans were registered to vote in Morocco in Guinea's 2025 constitutional referendum.

Arab, SudaneseJPIMBGRN

Population

~6,000 or more

Language

Arabic, Sudanese

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Rabat-Salé, Oujda, Casablanca; Nador and Tangier on the way north

Sudanese in Morocco are mostly refugees from the war that broke out in Sudan in April 2023, young men above all, who crossed the Sahara through Chad, Libya or Niger and entered Morocco from Algeria near Oujda. Since 2025 they have been the largest refugee nationality in the country, ahead of Syrians, and many of them come from Darfur, so Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa speakers live among the Arabic-speaking Sudanese. Their Sudanese Arabic sets them apart from Moroccans, and Moroccan Darija is hard for them to follow. Many wait in Rabat for their asylum claims or camp in the hills near Nador, where Sudanese were most of those killed in the crush at the Melilla border fence in June 2022.

Arab, Syrian (Muslim traditions)JPIMBGRNDiscovery

Population

4,450

Language

Standard Arabic

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Rabat and Salé, Casablanca, Oujda, Tangier and Marrakech

About 4,500 Syrians live in Morocco, most of them families who fled the war after 2011, many reaching Oujda overland through Algeria, alongside a few traders, doctors and students settled since the 1970s. They are the largest group of refugees the United Nations registers in Morocco, and in Rabat, Casablanca and Tangier many now run or work in Syrian restaurants, sweet shops and small trades, while others still beg at road junctions in Rabat. Tangier has a quarter known for its Syrians, with a mosque locals call the Mosque of the Syrians. When the old government in Damascus fell in December 2024 they celebrated in Morocco's big cities, yet few plan to go back, and some of their children already call themselves Moroccan; Syria reopened its embassy in Rabat in May 2026 after more than ten years.

MalianIMBDiscovery

Population

3,450

Language

French

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Casablanca and Rabat-Salé above all; Fès, Tangier, Marrakech and Agadir; migrants on the move in Oujda and Nador

Malians in Morocco are a small, mostly young community from Mali: students on Moroccan scholarships, imams in training, traders, and migrants who came across the Sahara through Algeria, some hoping to reach Europe and others settling to work. Rabat holds a cohort found nowhere else, several hundred Malian imams studying at the Mohammed VI Institute for the training of imams, sent by Mali's government to learn Morocco's Maliki, Sufi-leaning Islam and carry it home against Sahel extremism. Most Malians come from the Bambara, Malinke, Soninke, Fulani and Songhai peoples and are Sunni Muslims; many follow the Tijaniyya order, whose founder's shrine in Fès draws West African pilgrims. In Casablanca's working quarters, small West African home restaurants serve maffé, the peanut stew of Mali.

Algerian, Arabic-speakingJPIMBGRN

Population

2,800

Language

Arabic, Algerian

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Oujda and the Oriental border towns (Ahfir, Berkane); Casablanca, Rabat, Fès, Tangier, Marrakech and Agadir

Algerians in Morocco are a small community of a few thousand, most of them in Oujda and the towns of the eastern border, where families have lived on both sides of the frontier for generations, and in Casablanca and Rabat. Their western Algerian Arabic is so close to the speech of eastern Morocco that they pass easily, and many are married into Moroccan families. Oujda was the rear base of Algeria's independence fighters in the 1950s, and several of Algeria's later leaders grew up or served there. Since the land border closed in 1994 and diplomatic relations broke in 2021, families divided by the frontier can meet only by flying through a third country, yet Algeria still keeps consulates in Oujda and Casablanca to serve them.

SpaniardJPGRN

Population

2,100

Language

Spanish

Religion

Unaffiliated

Location

Tangier, Casablanca, Rabat and Tetouan, smaller groups in Nador, Al Hoceima, Larache, Marrakech and Agadir

About 2,100 Spanish citizens without Moroccan nationality live in Morocco, most of them in Tangier and the north, which Spain ruled as a protectorate from 1912 to 1956 from its capital in Tetouan. Over 100,000 Spaniards lived in the north and in Tangier before independence; nearly all left, and their number has halved again since 2014. Today's Spaniards are managers, teachers, aid workers, clergy and retirees, a short ferry ride from home. Spain keeps eleven state schools in Morocco, with about 5,000 pupils, most of them Moroccan, and Tangier's Spanish Cathedral and the Spanish Franciscans who lead the Archdiocese of Tangier still anchor a small Catholic community.

Americans, U.S.JPGRN

Population

2,000

Language

English

Religion

Christianity - Protestantism

Location

Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier and Marrakech; Peace Corps volunteers in small towns

About 2,000 United States citizens live in Morocco: diplomats and their families in Rabat and Casablanca, teachers and pupils of the American schools, business staff, retirees in Marrakech and Tangier, and Peace Corps volunteers posted to small towns and villages. Their ties are old: Morocco was among the first countries to recognise the new United States, in 1777, and the American Legation in Tangier, given to the United States in 1821, is its oldest diplomatic property abroad. The Peace Corps has sent more than 5,000 volunteers since 1963, and each new group still spends about ten weeks learning Darija or Tamazight before two years of service in Moroccan towns. Most are Christians or non-religious, and in 2010 dozens of Americans were expelled on charges of proselytism.

Han Chinese, MandarinJPIMBGRN

Population

1,500

Language

Mandarin Chinese

Religion

Ethnoreligion - Chinese Folk Religion

Location

Casablanca (Derb Omar wholesale district), Rabat, Tangier and Kenitra industrial zones; Chinese medical teams in seven provincial hospitals

About 1,500 Chinese live in Morocco, nearly all Mandarin-speaking Han from the mainland, and more than half of them in Casablanca. The best known are the wholesale traders of Derb Omar, the city's old market district, where Chinese shops selling clothes, toys and household goods gave one street the nickname "rue des Chinois". Others are engineers and managers of Chinese companies in Rabat and in the industrial zones of Tangier and Kenitra, where Chinese firms make car parts, tyres, cables and, since 2025-2026, electric-vehicle battery materials and cells. China has also sent medical teams to Moroccan hospitals since 1975, today 78 doctors and nurses in towns from Taza to Errachidia. Most came in the last twenty years for business or work, and few practise any religion.

Arab, Egyptian generalJPIMB

Population

1,470

Language

Arabic, Egyptian

Religion

Islam - Sunni

Location

Casablanca; Rabat, Tangier and Marrakech

About 1,500 Egyptians live in Morocco, most of them in Casablanca, the business capital, with smaller numbers in Rabat, Tangier and Marrakech. They are the second-largest Middle Eastern nationality in the country after the Syrians, drawn above all by work in Casablanca. Their Cairene Arabic is the one Arab dialect most Moroccans understand, from decades of Egyptian films, television series and songs, though Egyptians in turn struggle with Moroccan Darija. About one in ten Egyptians is a Coptic Christian, but Morocco has no Coptic church. The embassy in Rabat, which moved into a new building in 2022, gathers the community for meetings with the ambassador.

Filipino, TagalogJPGRN

Population

~1,300 or more

Language

Tagalog

Religion

Christianity - Roman Catholicism

Location

Casablanca, Rabat, Fes and other cities, mostly living in their employers' homes

About 1,300 Filipinos live in Morocco, seven in ten of them women, most working as nannies and housekeepers for well-off Moroccan and expatriate families in Casablanca, Rabat and Fes, where an English-speaking nanny is prized. Others work as beauty and spa therapists, dental technicians and welders. Many came from the 2000s through recruiters, some promised jobs in Dubai and sent to Morocco instead, and the Philippines had no embassy in Morocco until 2020, so workers relied on each other; in 2021 they founded the Filipino Society of Morocco, which holds Independence Day and Christmas festivals and helps workers who are unpaid or have lost their papers. As Catholics they gather at Rabat's Saint Francis of Assisi church for the Christmas dawn Masses of Simbang Gabi.

ItalianJPGRN

Population

1,200

Language

Italian

Religion

Christianity - Roman Catholicism

Location

Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Tangier

About 1,200 Italian citizens without Moroccan nationality live in Morocco, most of them in Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Tangier. They are the heirs of a once larger community: Sicilian builders, craftsmen and pharmacists made Casablanca's Maarif quarter a 'Little Italy', and about 17,500 Italians lived in Morocco in 1956, before nearly all left with independence. Today's Italians are mostly engineers, managers, diplomats, teachers and hotel owners. The Enrico Mattei Italian school, founded in Casablanca in 1920, still awards Italian diplomas, though most of its pupils are now Moroccan, and an Italian club meets in Casablanca and in Marrakech.