Gregory's ServerThe weekend is almost here, time for a #geoweirdness thread.
The last few times we've covered European territories, today we head south to Africa.
Without further ado, letโs explore what's geoweird about Morroco ๐ฒ๐ฆ
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3/ Morocco ๐ฒ๐ฆ is an ethnically and linguistically diverse state with a population of roughly 40 million. The two official languages are Moroccan Arabic, known as Darija, and Berber, or Tamazight. French is taught universally and the language of commerce and culture. Morocco is a member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. The end result is very complicated street signs, with not just three different languages but three different scripts. 4/ Itโs worth pausing to look at Berber a little more. There are roughly 6 million speakers, at least 3 major dialects (Tashelhit, Tamazight and Tarift) and has 3 orthographies (the Berber Latin alphabet, the Arabic alphabet and the traditional Tifinagh script). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Moroccan_Amazigh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_languages Hereโs the Tifinagh alphabet: @opencage in term of geoweirdness... never show a google issued map to officials/clerk of the country. They will soon leave you and you'll probably end up in a diplomatic incident. I don't know the open street map position on this. 5/ Leaving linguistics behind, let's move on to geographic curiosities with the interesting case of Tangier. Located in northwestern Morocco ๐ฒ๐ฆ from 1925 to 1956 (except for a Spanish occupation from 1940-45) the city was an "international zone", co-governed/administered by France ๐ซ๐ท, Spain ๐ช๐ธ, Britain ๐ฌ๐ง, the US ๐บ๐ธfrom 1925 to 1956 and separate from the rest of Morocco. 6/ Until 1956 northern Morocco ๐ฒ๐ฆ was a protectorate of Spain ๐ช๐ธ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_protectorate_in_Morocco Even today there are two Spanish "autonomous cities" on the Mediterranean coast: Ceuta and and Melilla 9/ As part of the conflict Morocco ๐ฒ๐ฆ has built a series of massive sand walls ("berms") to prevent movement of fighters of the Polisario Front - the nationalist movement of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic ๐ช๐ญ 10/ The conflict has largely simmered on without much international attention, though in 2020 it came back into focus when the United States ๐บ๐ธ recognised ๐ฒ๐ฆ Morocco's annexation of what it refers to as its "Southern Provinces" as part of diplomatic normalisation agreement talks between Morocco and Israel ๐ฎ๐ฑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Morocco_normalization_agreement |
2/ Morocco ๐ฒ๐ฆ - officially the Kingdom of Morroco - is a country in Northern Africa, part of the Arab Maghreb which includes Algeria ๐ฉ๐ฟ, Libya ๐ฑ๐พ ,Mauritania ๐ฒ๐ท, Tunisia ๐น๐ณ, and the disputed Western Sahara ๐ช๐ญ (more on that later).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb
Its English name comes from the Spanish โMarruecos,โ which stems from Marrakech, the fourth-largest city in the country. Rabat is the capital, while Casablanca is the largest city.
So far, so good. So what's #geoweird?