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Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to the east, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara to the south. Morocco also claims the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta, Melilla and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, and several small Spanish-controlled islands off its coast. It has a population of roughly 37 million, the official and predominant religion is Islam, and the official languages are Arabic and Berber; French and the Moroccan dialect of Arabic are also widely spoken. Moroccan identity and culture is a mix of Arab, Berber, African and European cultures. Its capital is Rabat, while its largest city is Casablanca. The region constituting Morocco has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era over 300,000 years ago. The Idrisid dynasty was established by Idris I in 788 and was subsequently ruled by a series of other independent dynasties, reaching its zenith as a regional power in the 11th and 12th centuries, under the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties, when it controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb. Centuries of Arab migration to the Maghreb since the 7th century shifted the demographic scope of the region. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Morocco faced external threats to its sovereignty, with Portugal seizing some territory and the Ottoman Empire encroaching from the east. The Marinid and Saadi dynasties otherwise resisted foreign domination, and Morocco was the only North African nation to escape Ottoman dominion. The 'Alawi dynasty, which rules the country to this day, seized power in 1631, and over the next two centuries expanded diplomatic and commercial relations with the Western world. Morocco's strategic location near the mouth of the Mediterranean drew renewed European interest; in 1912, France and Spain divided the country into respective protectorates, reserving an international zone in Tangier. Following intermittent riots and revolts against colonial rule, in 1956, Morocco regained its independence and reunified. Since independence, Morocco has remained relatively stable. It has the fifth-largest economy in Africa and wields significant influence in both Africa and the Arab world; it is considered a middle power in global affairs and holds membership in the Arab League, the Arab Maghreb Union, the Union for the Mediterranean, and the African Union. Morocco is a unitary semi-constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The executive branch is led by the King of Morocco and the prime minister, while legislative power is vested in the two chambers of parliament: the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. Judicial power rests with the Constitutional Court, which may review the validity of laws, elections, and referendums. The king holds vast executive and legislative powers, especially over the military, foreign policy and religious affairs; he can issue decrees called dahirs, which have the force of law, and can also dissolve the parliament after consulting the prime minister and the president of the constitutional court. Morocco claims ownership of the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, which it has designated its Southern Provinces. In 1975, after Spain agreed to decolonise the territory and cede its control to Morocco and Mauritania, a guerrilla war broke out between those powers and some of the local inhabitants. In 1979, Mauritania relinquished its claim to the area, but the war continued to rage. In 1991, a ceasefire agreement was reached, but the issue of sovereignty remained unresolved. Today, Morocco occupies two-thirds of the territory, and efforts to resolve the dispute have thus far failed to break the political deadlock. Name and etymology The English Morocco is an anglicisation of the Spanish name for the country, Marruecos, derived from the name of the city of Marrakesh, which was the capital of the Almoravid dynasty, the Almohad Caliphate, and the Saadian dynasty. During the Almoravid dynasty, the city of Marrakesh was established under the name of Tāmurākušt, derived from the city's ancient Berber name of amūr n Yakuš (lit. 'land/country of God'). Historically, the territory has been part of what Muslim geographers referred to as al-Maghrib al-Aqṣā  (المغرب الأقصى, 'the Farthest West [of the Islamic world]' designating roughly the area from Tiaret to the Atlantic) in contrast with neighbouring regions of al-Maghrib al-Awsaṭ  (المغرب الأوسط, 'the Middle West': Tripoli to Béjaïa) and al-Maghrib al-Adnā  (المغرب الأدنى, 'the Nearest West': Alexandria to Tripoli). Morocco's modern Arabic name is al-Maghrib (المغرب, transl. the land of the sunset; the west), with the Kingdom's official Arabic name being al-Mamlakah al-Maghribīyah (المملكة المغربية; transl. the kingdom of sunset/the west). In Turkish, Morocco is known as Fas, a name derived from its medieval capital of Fes which is derived from the Arabic word Faʾs (فأس; transl. pickaxe), as the city's founder Idris I ibn Abd Allah reputedly used a silver and gold pickaxe to trace the outlines of the city. In other parts of the Islamic world, for example in Egyptian and Middle Eastern Arabic literature before the mid-20th century, Morocco was commonly referred to as Murrakush (مراكش). The term is still used to refer to Morocco today in several Indo-Iranian languages, including Persian, Urdu, and Punjabi. Morocco has also been referred to politically by a variety of terms denoting the Sharifi heritage of the Alawi dynasty, such as al-Mamlakah ash-Sharīfah (المملكة الشريفة), al-Iyālah ash-Sharīfah (الإيالة الشريفة) and al-Imbarāṭūriyyah ash-Sharīfah (الإمبراطورية الشريفة), rendered in French as l'Empire chérifien and in English as the 'Sharifian Empire'. History Prehistory and antiquity The area of present-day Morocco has been inhabited since at least Paleolithic times, beginning sometime between 190,000 and 90,000 BC. A recent publication has suggested that there is evidence for even earlier human habitation of the area: Homo sapiens fossils that had been discovered in the late 2000s near the Atlantic coast in Jebel Irhoud were recently dated to roughly 315,000 years ago. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Maghreb was more fertile than it is today, resembling a savanna, in contrast to its modern arid landscape. Twenty-two thousand years ago, the Aterian culture was succeeded by the Iberomaurusian culture, which shared similarities with Iberian cultures. Skeletal similarities have been suggested between the human remains found at Iberomaurusian "Mechta-Afalou" burial sites and European Cro-Magnon remains. The Iberomaurusian culture was succeeded by the Beaker culture in Morocco. Mitochondrial DNA studies have discovered a close ancestral link between Berbers and the Saami of Scandinavia. This evidence supports the theory that some of the peoples who had been living in th.... 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