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Rang

Dye vats and Fez blue

Fez

A medieval city with open-air leather dye pits like a paintbox, and pottery painted in cobalt blue.

Medina of Fes, Marocco
Photo: Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Fez is fez blue

Fez is the oldest of Morocco's imperial cities, and its walled medina is one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world. In the Chouara tannery, used for many centuries, hides are soaked in stone vats of white lime and then dyed in rows of round pits filled with brown, red, yellow and other colours. Traditional dyes included poppy for red, saffron or pomegranate for yellow and indigo for blue. Seen from the terraces above, the pits look like a tray of paints. Fez is also known for pottery painted in a deep cobalt called Fez blue on a white glaze. Mosque roofs across the city are covered in green tiles, the colour of Islam.

Fez blue#1F4FA3Tannery yellow#E3B23CPoppy red#B5382FRoof-tile green#2F7F5ALime white#EFECE2

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

Colours tied to Fez

Cobalt blueA strong, stable blue pigment made from cobalt and alumina since the early 1800s
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Fez, Morocco" on Wikipedia. If you know Fez 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.🇲🇦 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.🇲🇦 Blue boats and white wallsEssaouiraA windy Atlantic port of white houses with blue shutters, and a harbour packed with blue fishing boats.🇮🇳 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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