Zagora Province

The 23,000 km ² and around 250,000 inhabitants and is part of the province of Zagora Moroccan Souss -Massa -Draa. Capital of the province is the city of Zagora.

Geography

Location

The Zagora province is bordered on the west by the province of Tata, in the northwest of the province of Ouarzazate, in the north- east by the province Tinghir, in the southeast of the province of Errachidia and on the south by Algeria.

Landscape

The landscape is divided into three areas: the approximately 800 to 1000 m above sea Draa Valley with its river oases are the lifeline and the main road of the province. To the west and east of it, the eastern foothills of the Anti- Atlas Mountains rise to heights of 1700 m. To the south lies the Sahara desert-like foothills, which - apart from the almost 1100 m high mountain chain of the Jbel Bani - at an altitude of about 700 m above sea level. inst is.

Climate

The climate is usually hot and dry. Daytime temperatures of 45 ° C are not uncommon in summer - in winter it is usually between 25-30 ° C; at night it cools, however, usually depending on the sky at about 5-15 ° C in summer and 0 to 10 ° in winter from.

Population

Of the approximately 250,000 inhabitants of the province about one-third live in the three cities Agdz, Zagora and Mhamid. Two-thirds are mainly spread on the river oases of the Oued Draa. The mountain regions are scarcely populated. Most people living here are Berber; spoken in addition Tamazight, Arabic.

Economy

The traditional oasis economy whose lead plant is the date palm, powered centuries (probably even millennia ) people with vital food. Animals (sheep, goats, chickens) in the oases could no longer run free, but had to be kept in stables and fed by humans. Due to the large distances the entire economic structure was oriented towards self-sufficiency. Markets and towns sprang up in the Draa Valley, only during the French colonial period. Since the 1970s, the tourism is in the Draa valley every year more and more.

History

Although hardly usable archaeological remains have received - not to mention written documents - but you have to assume that the Draa Valley, one of the first areas in Morocco was in which the people were sedentary. The river oases supplied the people, and at first even the animals with the necessities of life, so that the days of wandering came to an early end as hunter-gatherers or as cattle nomads here around 3000 BC, perhaps as late as 2000 BC. Since ancient times probably were barley, millet, broad beans, etc. can be grown chickpeas. Over time, more plants were brought here from other areas - in this way were very likely fig, pomegranate, olive and almond trees and prickly pears and grape vines, and later potatoes, tomatoes and other vegetables here.

In the sparsely populated mountain regions the traditional semi-nomadic lifestyle ( transhumance ) was preserved up to the present time.

The few archaeological evidence in the Draa valley consist of some perhaps 4,000 to 6,000 year old rock drawings ( petroglyphs ) with depictions of wild animals that must once have lived here - still lived in Carthaginian time in North Africa elephants. Significantly younger (around 500 BC to around 500 AD ), the engravings are on some stelae and rock slabs covered with unreadable geometric characters in the so-called " Libyan- Berber writing ."

Rhino

Ostrich

Libyan - Berber writing

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