Morocco communes

    A commune, arrondissement, province or région, by name or by code. Another spelling finds it too.

    Theme

    Morocco’s 1,503 communes, as open data.

    Official HCP codes, names in French and Arabic, population from the 2024 and 2014 censuses, what they found about people and homes, the establishments the last one mapped, and a boundary for every commune but one. Free to use.

    • < 10
    • 10–50
    • 50–150
    • 150–500
    • 500–2,000
    • 2,000+
    • no boundary

    people per km², 2024

    1,502 communes, from the boundaries this API serves.Every commune, by région© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL

    12
    régions
    83
    provinces and préfectures
    213
    cercles
    1,503
    communes
    41
    arrondissements

    How a code reads

    Each group of digits names a level, so a commune’s code already contains its province and its région. Cercles sit above rural communes only; an urban commune may hold arrondissements instead.

    codeHow a code readsPopulation, 2024
    01Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceimarégion4,030,222
    01.511Tanger-Assilahpréfecture1,494,413
    01.511.05Tangercercle60,807
    01.511.05.19Hjar Ennhalcommune27,204
    01.511.01.0Tangercommune1,275,428
    01.511.01.05Mghoghaarrondissement252,656

    What the numbers show

    The south is filling up

    Population change by région between the 2014 and 2024 censuses.

    • Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab+53.9%
    • Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra+22.6%
    • Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceima+13.3%
    • Souss-Massa+12.8%
    • Casablanca-Settat+12.1%
    • Rabat-Salé-Kénitra+12.0%
    • Marrakech-Safi+8.2%
    • Fès-Meknès+5.5%
    • Guelmim-Oued Noun+3.4%
    • Drâa-Tafilalet+1.3%
    • Béni Mellal-Khénifra+0.2%
    • Oriental−0.9%

    Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab grew by more than half. The Oriental is the only région that shrank. Each bar is summed from the région’s communes.

    Most communes are small

    Communes by 2024 population.

    • <2k: 64
    • 2–5k: 243
    • 5–10k: 452
    • 10–25k: 515
    • 25–50k: 125
    • 50–100k: 56
    • 100k+: 48

    Half the people, under 1% of the land

    The 121 densest communes, against the other 1,382.

    Share of the population, 2024
    Share of the land

    Most communes lost people

    Communes that lost or gained people between the censuses. Overall, urban +12.8%, rural +3.0%.

    Rural communes
    792 lost people, 466 gained
    Urban communes
    63 lost people, 178 gained

    lost peoplegained

    What the two censuses found

    5 rates HCP published in 2014 and again in 2024, for Morocco, each asked the same way both times.

    • Can’t read or write32.2%24.8%Can’t read or write: 32.2% in 2014, 24.8% in 2024.
    • Higher education6.1%10.2%Higher education: 6.1% in 2014, 10.2% in 2024.
    • Unemployment16.2%21.3%Unemployment: 16.2% in 2014, 21.3% in 2024.
    • Running water73.0%82.9%Running water: 73.0% in 2014, 82.9% in 2024.
    • Electricity91.6%97.1%Electricity: 91.6% in 2014, 97.1% in 2024.

    20142024

    Whether the crosswalk holds up

    207 communes were renumbered by the 2015 reform, so their 2014 population had to be matched by name and elimination rather than read off an unchanged code. If those matches were wrong, their implied growth would scatter differently.

    Code unchanged since 20141,286: median −2.0%, middle half −10.8% to +7.3%, 10th to 90th percentile −18.0% to +22.5%Renumbered, matched by the crosswalk207: median −3.8%, middle half −11.8% to +5.2%, 10th to 90th percentile −19.1% to +23.5%

    The bar spans the 10th to 90th percentile, the block the 25th to 75th, the line the median. The 2 distributions nearly overlap, so the matches look sound. The crosswalk’s README gives the reasoning for each pair.

    Run a query

    Requests go to the live API.

    French, Arabic or a slug. Accents and Arabic letter variants fold, and old names work too: Fez finds Fès, Port Lyautey finds Kénitra.

    RequestGET /api/search?q=Fez&limit=5

    Pick an example or type a query, then run it.

    Build on it

    Where a request is answered

    The X-Api-Tier header says where a request was answered. A static file has none, since nothing ran.

    1. A file on the CDN

      no header, because nothing ran

      11,629 responses are written when the site’s built, and cost nothing to serve.

    2. A rewrite to that file

      X-Api-Tier: alias

      A query string can’t pick a file, so requests written that way are resolved to the file that already holds the answer, and the response names it.

    3. Worked out on the spot

      X-Api-Tier: computed

      Search, point and radius queries, and filter combinations no single file covers. These are the only requests that spend anything.

    Take the whole thing

    Every file here is built from the dataset in the repository, which works without the API too. Boundaries, and every figure drawn from them, are under ODbL. The README describes each field.