Tangier or
Tangiers [pronounce]
(Ṭanja طنجة in Berber and Arabic, Tánger in
Spanish,
Tânger in Portuguese, and
Tanger in French) is a city of northern Morocco
with a
population of about 700,000 (2008 census). It lies on the
North African coast at the western
entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar
where the Mediterranean
meets the Atlantic
Ocean off
Cape
Spartel
. It is the capital of the
Tangier-Tétouan Region.
The history of Tangier is very rich due to the historical presence
of many civilizations and cultures starting from the 5th century
BC.
Between the period of being a Phoenician
town to the independence era around the 1950s,
Tangier was a place —and, sometimes a refuge— for many cultural
diversities. However, it wasn't until 1923 that Tangier was
attributed an
international
status by foreign
colonial
powers, thus becoming a destination for many Europeans and
non-Europeans alike such as Americans and Indians.
Nowadays, the city is undergoing rapid development and
modernization. Projects include new 5-star hotels along the bay, a
modern business district called
Tangier City Center, a new airport
terminal and a new soccer stadium.
Tangier's economy will also benefit
greatly from the new Tanger-med
port.
History
The modern
Tanjah (Anglicised as Tangier) is an
ancient Berber and Phoenician town, founded by Carthaginian
colonists in the early 5th century BC. Its
name is possibly derived from the
Berber
goddess Tinjis (or Tinga), and it remains
an important city for the
Berbers.
Ancient coins call it
Tenga, Tinga, and
Titga with Greek and Latin authors giving numerous
variations of the name.
According to
Berber mythology, the
town was built by
Sufax, son of Tinjis, the
wife of the Berber hero Änti (Greek
Antaios, Latin
Antaeus). The Greeks
ascribed its foundation to the giant
Antaios, whose tomb and skeleton are pointed out in
the vicinity, calling Sufax the son of
Hercules by the widow of Antaeus. The cave of
Hercules, a few miles from the city, is a major tourist attraction.
It is believed that Hercules slept there before attempting one of
his
twelve labours.
The commercial town of
Tingis came under
Roman rule in the course of the 1st
century BC, first as a free city and then, under Augustus, a colony
(
Colonia Julia, under Claudius), capital of
Mauritania Tingitana of
Hispania. It was the scene of the martyrdoms of
Saint
Marcellus of Tangier. In
the 5th century AD,
Vandals conquered and
occupied "Tingi" and from here swept across North Africa. A century
later (between 534 and 682), Tangier fell back into
Roman empire, before coming under
Arab (
Umayyad) control in 702.
Due to its Christian past it is still a
titular see of the
Roman Catholic Church.
Tangier was ruled by
Umayyads,
Abbasids,
Idrisids,
Fatimids,
Caliphate of Cordoba,
Maghrawa Emirate,
Almoravids,
Almohads,
Marinids and
Kingdom of Fez before Portuguese
conquest.
When the Portuguese
started their expansion in Morocco, by taking
Ceuta
in 1415, Tangiers was always a
primary goal. They failed to capture the city in
1437 but finally occupied it in
1471.
The Portuguese rule (including Spanish
rule between
1580-1640) lasted until 1661, when it was given
to Charles II of England as
part of the dowry from the Portuguese Infanta Catherine of Braganza. The
English gave the city a
garrison
and a charter which made it equal to English towns. The English
planned to improve the harbour by building a mole.
With an improved
harbour the town would have played the same role that Gibraltar
later played in British naval strategy. The
mole cost £340,000 and reached 1436 feet long, before being blown
up during the evacuation.
In 1679, Sultan
Moulay Ismail of
Morocco made an unsuccessful attempt to seize the town but imposed
a crippling blockade which ultimately forced the English to
withdraw. The English destroyed the town and its port facilities
prior to their departure in 1684. Under
Moulay Ismail the city was reconstructed
to some extent, but it gradually declined until, by 1810, the
population was no more than 5,000.
The United States dedicated its first consulate in Tangier during
the
George Washington
administration.
In 1821, the Legation
Building
in Tangier became the first piece of property
acquired abroad by the U.S. government—a
gift to the U.S. from Sultan Moulay
Suliman. It was bombarded by the French
Prince de Joinville in 1844.
Garibaldi lived in exile at Tangier in
late 1849 and the first half of 1850, following the fall of the
revolutionary [[Roman Republic (19th century)|Roman
Republic]].
Tangier's geographic location made it a centre for
European diplomatic and commercial rivalry in Morocco
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the opening of the
20th century it had a population of about 40,000, including 20,000
Muslims (with Berbers predominating over Arabs), 10,000 Jews, and
9,000 Europeans (of whom 7,500 were Spanish). The city was
increasingly coming under French influence, and it was here in 1905
that Kaiser
Wilhelm II
triggered
an international crisis
that almost led to war between his country and France by
pronouncing himself in favour of Morocco's continued
independence.
In 1912,
Morocco was effectively partitioned between France
and Spain, the latter
occupying the country's far north (called Spanish Morocco) and a part of Moroccan territory in the south, while France
declared a protectorate over the remainder. The last Sultan of
independent Morocco, Moulay
Hafid, was exiled to the Sultanate Palace
in the Tangier Kasbah after his forced abdication
in favour of his brother Moulay
Yusef. Tangier was made an international zone in 1923 under the
joint administration of France, Spain, and Britain
, joined by Italy
, Portugal and Belgium
in 1928. The International zone of Tangiers had a
surface of 373 square kilometers and, by 1939, a population of
about 60,000 inhabitants After a period of effective Spanish control from 1940 to 1945 during World War II, the statute of 1923 was
officially restored on August 31, 1945. Tangier joined with the rest of Morocco following
the restoration of full sovereignty in 1956.
Ecclesiastical history
Tangier was a
Roman Catholic titular see of former
Mauretania Tingitana. Originally the
city was part of the larger province of
Mauretania Caesariensis, which
included much of Northern Africa. Later the area was subdivided,
with the eastern part keeping the former name and the newer part
receiving the name of Mauretania Tingitana. (Thus one official list
of the Roman Curia places it in Mauretania Caesarea).
Towards the end of the third century, Tangier was the scene of the
martyrdom of Saint
Marcellus of
Tangier, mentioned in the
Roman
Martyrology on
30 October, and of
St. Cassian, mentioned on
3 December. It is not known whether it
was a diocese in ancient times.
Under the Portuguese domination, it was a
suffragan of Lisbon and, in 1570, was united to
the
diocese of Ceuta. Six of its
bishops are known, the first, who did not reside in his see, in
1468. In the protectorate era of Morocco Tangier was the residence
of the
prefect Apostolic of
Morocco, which mission was in charge of the
Friars Minor. It had a Catholic church, several
chapels, schools, and a hospital. The city is a host of the
Anglican church of Saint
Andrew.
Espionage history
Tangier has been reputed as a
safe house
for international
spying activities. Its
position during the
Cold War and other
spying periods of the 19th and 20th century is legendary.
Tangier acquired the reputation of a spying and smuggling centre
and attracted foreign capital due to political neutrality and
commercial liberty at that time.
It was via a British bank in Tangiers
that the Bank of
England
in 1943 for the first time obtained samples of the
high-quality forged British currency produced by the Nazis in
"Operation
Bernhard".
The city has also been a subject for many
spy fiction books and films. (See
Tangier in popular
culture below).
Culture
The multicultural placement of
Muslim,
Christian, and
Jewish communities and the foreign immigrants
attracted writers like
Paul Bowles,
William S. Burroughs,
Jack
Kerouac,
Tennessee Williams,
Brion Gysin and the music group the
Rolling Stones, who all lived in or
visited Tangier during different periods of the 20th century.
It was after
Delacroix that Tangier became
an obligatory stop for artists seeking to experience the colors and
light he spoke of for themselves - with varying results.
Matisse made several sojourns in Tangier, always
staying at the Hotel Villa de France. "I have found landscapes in
Morocco," he claimed, "exactly as they are described in Delacroix's
paintings." The Californian artist
Richard Diebenkorn was directly
influenced by the haunting colors and rhythmic patterns of
Matisse’s Morocco paintings.
In the 1940s and until 1956 when the city was an
International Zone, the city served as a
playground for eccentric millionaires, a meeting place for
secret agents and all kinds of crooks, and a
mecca for speculators and gamblers, an Eldorado for the fun-loving
"Haute Volée". During
World War II the
Office of Strategic
Services operated out of Tangier for various operations in
North Africa.
Around the same time, a circle of writers emerged which was to have
a profound and lasting literary influence. This included
Paul Bowles,
Tennessee Williams and
Jean Genet as well as
Mohamed Choukri (one of
North Africa's most controversial and widely
read authors),
Abdeslam Boulaich,
Larbi Layachi,
Mohammed Mrabet and
Ahmed Yacoubi. Among the best known works from
this period is Choukri's
For Bread Alone. Originally
written in Classical Arabic, the English edition was the result of
close collaboration with Bowles (who worked with Choukri to provide
the translation and supplied the introduction).
Tennessee Williams described it as 'a
true document of human desperation, shattering in its impact.'
Independently,
William S.
Burroughs'
Naked Lunch was written in Tangier and the
book's locale of
Interzone is an
allusion to the city.
After several years' gradual disentanglement from Spanish and
French colonial control, Morocco reintegrated the city of Tangier
at the signing of the
Tangier
Protocol on
October 29,
1956.
Tangier remains a very popular tourist
destination for cruise ships and day visitors from Spain and Gibraltar.
Economy
A satellite image of Tangier
For main article see Economy of
Tangier
Tangier
is Morocco's second most important industrial center after Casablanca
. The industrial sectors are diversified:
textile,
chemical,
mechanical,
metallurgical and
naval.
Currently, the city has four
industrial
parks of which two have the status of
free economic zone (see
Tangier Free Zone).
Tangier's economy relies heavily on
tourism.
Seaside resorts have been increasing
with projects funded by
foreign
investments.
Real estate and
construction companies have been
investing heavily in tourist infrastructures. A bay delimiting the
city center extends for more than seven kilometers. The years 2007
and 2008 will be particularly important for the city because of the
completion of large construction projects currently being built.
These
include the Tangier-Mediterranean port ("Tanger-med") and its industrial parks, a 45,000-seat sports
stadium, an expanded business district, and a renovated tourist
infrastructure.
Agriculture in the area of Tangier is
tertiary and mainly cereal.
The
infrastructure of this city of the strait of Gibraltar consists of a port that manages
flows of goods and travellers (more than one million travelers per
annum) and integrates a marina with a
fishing port.
Artisanal trade in the old medina
(old city)
specializes mainly in leather
working, handicrafts made from wood and silver, traditional
clothing, and shoes of Moroccan origin.
The city has seen a fast pace of
rural
exodus from other small cities and villages. The population has
quadrupled during the last 25 years (1 million inhabitants in 2007
vs. 250,000 in 1982). This phenomenon has resulted in the
appearance of peripheral suburban districts, mainly inhabited by
poor people, that often lack sufficient infrastructure.
The city's
postcode is 90 000.
New Developments
New
developments include a new terminal at the airport, a football
stadium seating 69,000 spectators
,a
high-speed train, and a
business district called
Tangier
City Center.
Notable landmarks
Transport
A
railroad line connects the city with
Rabat
, Casablanca and Marrakech
in the south and Fès
and Oujda
in the
east. The service is operated by
ONCF.
The
Rabat-Tanger expressway
connects Tangier to Fès via Rabat (250 km) and Settat
via
Casablanca (330 km). Another expressway will connect the city
with Tanger-med. The Ibn Batouta
International Airport
(also known as Tangier-Boukhalef) is located
15 km south-west of the city center.
The new
Tanger-med port is managed by the Danish firm A.
P. Moller-Maersk Group and will free up the old port for tourist and
recreational development.
Tangier's Ibn Batouta International Airport and the rail tunnel
will serve as the gateway to the "Moroccan Riviera" the coast
between Tangier and Oujda. Traditionally the north coast was an
impoverished and underdeveloped region of Morocco but it has some
of the best beaches on the Mediterranean and is likely to see rapid
development.
The
Tangier-Boukhalef Airport
is being expanded and will become larger with more
flights. Easyjet flies to Tangier from Paris and Madrid, and
will soon fly via London. Ryanair flies from Milan, Marseille,
Brussels and Madrid. The biggest Airlines at the Airport
Atlas Blue flies from 7 cities to Tangier, from
Barcelona, Amsterdam, Brussels, London Gatwick and Heathrow, Paris
Orly and CDG, Madrid and Casablanca. In addition, a
TGV high-speed train
system is being built. It will take a few years to complete,
and will become the fastest train system in North Africa.
Language
Arabic is the official language, but eight other languages are also
spoken including Berber, French and Spanish. English is generally
understood in the tourist areas, but French is the most widely
spoken.
Education
Tangier offers five different types of educational systems: Arabic,
American, French, Spanish and English. Each of these systems offer
classes starting from Pre-Kindergarten up to the 12th grade,
Baccalaureat, or
High school diploma.
Many universities are located both inside and outside the city.
Universities like the "Institut Superieur Internationale de
Tourisme" (ISIT), which is a school that offers diplomas in various
departments, offer courses ranging from
business administration to
hotel management. The
institute is among one of the most prestigious
tourism schools in the country. Other colleges such
as the "Ecole Nationale de Commerce et de Gestion" (
ENCG-T) is among the
biggest
business schools in the
country as well as "Ecole Nationale des Sciences appliquées" (
ENSA-T), a
rising
engineering school for
applied sciences.
Primary Education
There are more than a hundred Moroccan
primary schools, each dispersed randomly in
the city.
International Primary Institutions
- Colegio Ramon y Cajal (Spanish primary school)
- English College of Tangier
International High Schools
- Lycée Regnault (French High School)
- Instituto Severo Ochoa (Spanish High School)
- English College of Tangier
- Mohammed Fatih Turkish School of Tangier
Tangier in popular culture
Tangier was the subject of many artistic works, including novels,
films and music.
The flag of the Tangier
province.
Literature
- Silent Day in Tangiers by Tahar Ben Jelloun.
- Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs - relates some of the
author's experiences in Tangier. (See also Naked Lunch )
- America by Allen
Ginsberg
- Desolation
Angels by Jack Kerouac relates
him living with William Burroughs and other Beat writers in
Tangier.
- Interzone by Burroughs
- It talks about a fictionalized version of Tangier called
Interzone.
- Let It Come
Down is Paul Bowles's second novel, first published in
1952
- The Loom of Youth by Alec
Waugh - a controversial semi-autobiographical novel relating homosexual
experiences of the author in the city of Tangier.
- Two Tickets to Tangier by Francis Van Wyck Mason, an American
novelist and historian
- Modesty
Blaise; a fictional character in a comic strip of the same name and a series of
books created by Peter O'Donnell -
In 1945 a nameless girl escaped from a displaced person (DP) camp
in Karylos, Greece
. She
took control of a criminal gang in Tangier and expanded it to
international status as "The Network". After dissolving The Network
and moving to England she maintained a house on a hillside above
Tangier and many scenes in the books and comic strips are located
here.
- Carpenter's World Travels: From Tangier to Tripoli - a
Frank G. Carpenter travel guide (1927)
- The Thief's Journal
by Jean Genet - Includes the
protagonist's experiments in negative morality in Tangier
(1949)
- The Alchemist by
Paulo Coelho
- The Crossroads of the Medterranean by Henrik de Leeuw-
chronicles the author's journey through Morocco and Tunisia in the
early 1950s and includes many pages describing Tangier, notably the
Petit Socco as a food market with mountain dwellers (the
jebli) selling their produce and 'the street of male
harlots', where they ply 'their shameful trade'.
- The Gold Bug
Variations by Richard
Powers
- The Innocents
Abroad by Mark Twain includes a
mixed bag of comments on his visit to Tangier, ending with: "I
would seriously recommend to the Government of the United States
that when a man commits a crime so heinous that the law provides no
adequate punishment for it, they make him Consul-General to Tangier."
- Seed by Mustafa Mutabaruka - An African American
dancer struggling with the death of his father meets an enigmatic
young woman and her companion in Tangier.
Magazines
- Antaeus
was first published in Tangier by Daniel Halpern and Paul Bowles
before being shifted to New
York
- Tangier Gazette was founded by William Augustus Bird
(aka Bill Bird) in Tangier
Films
- The Living
Daylights - a James Bond movie
where he hunts Brad Whitaker down at
his Tangier headquarters
- From Russia with
Love - the fictional character in "James Bond", Red Grant was recruited by "SPECTRE" in Tangier in
1962, whilst on the run from the law
- Tangier Incident - an American agent posing as a black
market operator, is in Tangier on a mission to stop the plans of
three atomic scientists who are there to pool their secrets and
sell them in a package to the Communists.
- Man from Tangier (a.k.a. Thunder Over
Tangier) - 1957
- Tangiers, 1908 was one of the unaired Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles episodes
- Flight to Tangier (Charles Marquis Warren) - 1953
- Tangier an episode of the television series
Passport to Danger starring Cesar
Romero - 1955
- The Nautch of Tangier (aka The Witchmaker) -
1969
- Tangier featuring María
Montez, Robert Paige, and Sabu Dastagir - 1946
- Espionage in Tangiers. A thriller of a secret agent out to snag a
dangerous molecular ray-gun - 1966
- That Man from Tangier (in Spanish Aquel Hombre de
Tanger) featuring Sara
Montiel
- The Bourne
Ultimatum, an espionage movie featuring Matt Damon - Jason Bourne tracks a man through
the city who has information on his (Bourne's) past. - 2007
- The Wind and the
Lion - Based on the Perdicaris incident of 1904, this film,
starring Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, and Brian Keith, takes place largely in Tangier.
The
film's Tangier, however, was actually created in the Spanish cities
of Seville
and Almeria
.
- Prick Up Your
Ears(film), Joe Orton
(Gary Oldman) and Kenneth
Halliwell (Alfred Molina) visit Tangier, the scene represents
the 88 day holiday that Joe Orton took after the failure of his
play 'Loot'.
Music
Paintings
People born in Tangier
People who settled or sojourned in Tangier
People who died in Tangier
Trivia
- One of the Lathyrus tingitanus plants
is called Tangier Pea.
- As a great collector of toy
soldiers, the American billionaire and publisher of
Forbes magazine Malcolm Forbes brought together a total of
115,000 models in what was the Forbes Museum of Tangier.
These
figures re-enacted the major battles of history; from Waterloo
to Dien Bien Phû
, realistically recreated with lighting and sound effects. Entire armies stand on
guard in the showcases, while in the garden, 600 statuettes bear
silent homage to the Battle of
Three Kings. The museum was closed after the death of Malcolm
Forbes and is now used by the Moroccan government as a private
residence for visiting dignitaries.
- One of the inherited disorders of bloodstream is called the Tangier disease, albeit named for Tangier Island, which was named for
Tangier.
- The name tangerine comes from Tangier
from which the first tangerines were shipped to Europe. The
adjective tangerine, "from Tangier", was already an
English word (first recorded in 1710).
- The poem called "Herb's Herbs" of unknown origin describes a
capitonym:
- : A herb store owner, name of Herb, Moved to a rainier
Mount Rainier.
- : It would have been so nice in Nice, And even tangier in
Tangier.
Events
Landmarks
Town twinning
See also
References and notes
- The name Tangier is pronounced, in the English manner,
as "Tan-jeer" or in the French manner, as "Tahn-jer" depending on
regional accent.
- E.M.G. Routh — Tangier: England's lost Atlantic outpost, 1912;
M.Elbl, “(Re)claiming Walls: The Fortified Médina of Tangier under
Portuguese Rule (1471-1661) and as a Modern Heritage Artefact,"
Portuguese Studies Review 15 (1-2) (2007; publ. 2009):
103-192.
- Power, Faith, and Fantasy: In the beginning, for
America, was the Middle East, Matt Buckingham, Wweek,
February 14, 2007.
- text of the Final Act of the Conference Concerning the
Reestablishment of the International Regime in Tangier,
Department of State Bulletin, October 21, 1945, pp.
613-618
- The American Legation at Tangier, Morocco
- The Guardian, 28 April, 2008
External links
, Moscow
).
)
-Greek
. He may have been transported to
Tangier.
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