The town of Ouarzazate

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Presentation

General information
Ouarzazate is a city of the south of Morocco which one calls also the door of the desert, and the chief town of the province of the same name.

Etymology
Ouarzazate, of the tamazight War-Zazat, “without noise”, in Arabic ورزازات.

Located at the meeting of the valleys of the Ouarzazate wadi and the Dadès wadi (resulting from the High Atlas) which forms the Draa wadi with the downstream of their confluence, it is the nerve center of a vast area of the Moroccan South. Ouarzazate evokes at the same time the southern buttresses of the High Atlas and the proximity of the desert.

Visits

Climate
Ouarzazate profits from an arid climate with an annual pluviometry of only 112 mm. Precipitations are weak and irregular even null in summer. In winter the temperatures are fresh the night while in summer heat is torrid in the course of the day. The vegetable cover is very sparse and agriculture is not possible that thanks to the use of water of the wadi drâa to irrigate the arable lands.
Taourirt kasbah
The symbol of the city is the Taourirt kasbah which belonged to the Pasha El Glaoui, it would have been built about the middle of the xviii ^E century. It is represented in the new tickets of 50 dirhams and is next to the medina.

Kasbah of Tifoultoute
The kasbah of Tifoultoute is located at 8 km west of Ouarzazate. It is drawn up on a rocky outcrop which dominates the valley of the Ouarzazate wadi. This fortress belonged to the family of Thami El Glaoui, pasha de Marrakech. Scenes of the Lawrence film of Arabia were turned there. Currently, the kasbah is transformed into restoring hotel.

History, literature, arts, traditions, legends, religions, myths, symbols…

History
In 1928 French colonial power in fact a garrison town. On the military level it was used as a basis of aviation against the famous tribe of Has Attas which fought savagely against the troops of Henri de Bournazel, (the man with the red coat, killed in Morocco in 1933), until 1934 when the chief rebels Assou Oubasslam returned to the French to avoid the massacre of the populations cut off in the mountains.

Economy
Today the town of Ouarzazate is in full rise on the plans tourist and cinematographic. It is in particular one of the Moroccan sites most snuffed by the realizers of cinema. Y were thus turned, partially or entirely: Hundred thousand dollars in the sun, Lawrence of Arabia, Kundun, Gladiator, Alexandre the Large one, Astérix & Obélix: Cléopâtre mission, the Mummy, Kingdom of Heaven, Babel, Banzaï, Prince of Persia: Sands of time etc
Ouarzazate has an international airport and is accessible by the road since Marrakech (4 hours in the bus, 3:30 in the taxi) via Tizi Tichka.