Chefchaouen was founded in 1471 as a fortress against the Portuguese, then filled with Muslims and Jews expelled from Granada. Closed to outsiders for 450 years, it kept an Andalusian town intact — walls, kasbah, mellah and octagonal minaret.
The 1471 fortress that founded the town, built by Moulay Ali ibn Rachid as a base against Portuguese Ksar es-Seghir. Eleven crenellated towers, Andalusian garden and the dungeon where Rif leader Abdelkrim's rivals were held. Open 09:00-18:30.
Built around 1560 by Ali ben Rachid's son Mohammed. The octagonal minaret is a direct Andalusian import — the form survives almost nowhere else in Morocco. Non-Muslims view the exterior and the horseshoe-arched portal from the square.
Rif weaponry, 17th-century Andalusian musical instruments, painted wedding chests and a scale model of the walled town before 1920. Labels in Arabic, French and Spanish — a legacy of the Protectorate administration.
The western gate of 1471 and the principal entrance for six centuries. The low, narrow arch was built to force riders to dismount. Sections of the original rammed-earth wall run north from here towards Bab el-Mahrouk.
Built during the Spanish Protectorate after troops under General Berenguer took the town in October 1920 — the first Christians to enter in 450 years. The bell tower and Neo-Mudéjar facade survive on the edge of the new town.
The square where the Spanish installed their civil offices in the 1920s, immediately outside the medina wall so the colonial administration sat physically apart from the Muslim town. Arcaded buildings still carry the 1930s ironwork.
Settled by Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 who brought the indigo dyeing that most historians credit for the blue walls. The quarter emptied between 1948 and 1967; the narrow houses with upper-floor balconies remain around Rue Sidi Salem.
Built by the Spanish in the 1920s on the hillside east of town as a gesture to the local population, then never used and abandoned at independence in 1956. Restored as a viewpoint; a 40-minute climb from Ras el-Maa.
The small working tannery on the stream below the spring uses the same lime-and-pigeon-dung process recorded here since the 16th century, on a fraction of the scale of Fez. Two or three pits and a handful of families still operating.
The pottery market named for its jars. The unglazed red earthenware and the ridged water vessels follow forms brought from Andalusia in the 1490s and made in workshops in the surrounding Rif villages ever since.
Ground-floor cellars along Rue Targui still hold pit looms where men weave the striped Rif blankets and djellaba cloth. The wool comes from Bab Taza and Akchour; several looms are over a century old and worked by the third generation.
The northern gate opening onto the mountain tracks Abdelkrim's forces used during the Rif War of 1921-26, when Chefchaouen briefly fell to the Republic of the Rif before Spanish reoccupation. The name means Gate of the Burned.