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Rang

Blue boats and white walls

Essaouira

A windy Atlantic port of white houses with blue shutters, and a harbour packed with blue fishing boats.

Ramparts of Essaouira. My own work taken while on vacation in Morocco Nov 6, 2008
Photo: Kayaky, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Essaouira is essaouira blue

Essaouira, once called Mogador, is a port on Morocco's Atlantic coast. The present town was laid out in the 1760s for Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah, with straight streets inside sea walls. Its houses are white with shutters and doors in a strong blue, and the small wooden fishing boats in the harbour are painted the same blue. The colour has a long local echo. On the small islands just offshore, snails were processed for purple dye in ancient times, under King Juba II about two thousand years ago; they are still called the Purple Islands. The town is known for steady wind, gulls, grilled sardines and woodwork in scented thuya wood.

Essaouira blue#2B6CB0Limewash white#F4F3EERampart ochre#C9A36BAncient purple#66023C

Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.

Colours tied to Essaouira

BlueA primary colour seen in the sky and sea, used since ancient times in art and dyeTyrian purpleA reddish-purple dye once worth its weight in silver, made from sea snails
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Essaouira" on Wikipedia. If you know Essaouira and we have it wrong, tell us.

More colour cities

All colour cities
🇲🇦 The Blue PearlChefchaouenA mountain town in northern Morocco whose lanes, steps and doors are washed in many shades of blue.🇲🇦 The Red CityMarrakechWalls of red earth ring the old city, and building rules keep new streets in the same warm pink-red.🇲🇦 Dye vats and Fez blueFezA medieval city with open-air leather dye pits like a paintbox, and pottery painted in cobalt blue.🇲🇦 The red earth fortress villageAït BenhaddouA fortified village of red-brown earth climbing a hill on the old caravan road south of the Atlas.🇲🇦 White walls, painted muralsAsilahA whitewashed Atlantic town where artists paint new murals on the medina walls each summer.🇮🇳 The Blue CityJodhpurOld-city houses washed in blue crowd the foot of Mehrangarh Fort, on the edge of the Thar Desert.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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