What is the population of Morocco?

Morocco is home to around 37 to 38 million people — a number worth knowing because it shapes the texture of every place you'll visit. It's a young country: the median age is in the late twenties, and you feel that energy in the medinas, the cafés full of students, and the start-up scene in Casablanca and Rabat. This isn't a sleepy or shrinking population; it's vibrant, urbanising and increasingly connected.

The distribution surprises people. Casablanca is the economic heavyweight, with roughly 3.7 million in the city and far more in its wider region — it's where the money, the port and the business move, even though it's not the capital. Rabat is the political capital, Fes and Marrakech are the cultural and tourist anchors, and Tangier in the north is booming on the back of its port and proximity to Europe. Around two-thirds of Moroccans now live in cities, a big shift from a generation ago.

The other third still lives rurally, and that's where some of my favourite travel happens. In the Atlas valleys, the Berber (Amazigh) villages, and the oasis towns of the south, you meet a Morocco that moves to the rhythm of agriculture, markets and family rather than commerce. The contrast between a humming Casablanca boulevard and a mountain village an hour from Marrakech is part of what makes the country so rewarding to explore.

For you as a visitor, the population's youth and warmth matter more than the raw figure. Moroccans are, in my experience, genuinely hospitable to travellers — hosting guests is a point of cultural pride — and because the country is young and well-used to tourism, you'll find English spoken in tourist areas alongside Arabic, Tamazight and French. You're visiting a living, growing nation, not a museum, and that makes the encounters richer.