Meknès

Meknès (mĕknĕs`), city (1994 pop. 443,214), N central Morocco. It has a noted carpet-weaving industry. There are also woolen mills, cement and metal works, oil distilleries, and food-processing plants. Meknès became (c.1672) the capital of Morocco under Sultan Ismail, who undertook such palatial building operations that the city was called the Versailles of Morocco. Little of his construction has survived. A European town is laid out beside the old one.

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Meknès

City (pop., 1994: 459,958), north-central Morocco. It was one of Morocco's four imperial cities, founded in the 10th century by a Berber tribe. Originally a group of villages among olive groves, it became the Moroccan capital in 1673 under Maulay Isma'il, who built palaces and mosques that earned for Meknès the name “Versailles of Morocco.” After his death it declined, and in 1911 it was occupied by the French. It is now a commercial centre for agricultural products, fine embroidery, and carpets.

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Meknès 

a city in northwestern Morocco; the capital of the province of Meknès. Population, 248,000 (1971). Meknès has a railroad station and an airport; it is also a highway junction and an important center for the surrounding agricultural region (wheat, olives, grapes, and citrus fruits). There are food-processing enterprises (a vegetable-oil mill, a flour mill and canneries) and textile and woodworking industries. Other industries include a large cement plant and a glazed pottery plant. The city was founded in the llth century.

Architectural monuments that have been preserved in the old city include walls with numerous gates (Bab al-Mansur, 1732), the Great Mosque (1203), the Bu Inaniya Madrasa (mid-14th century), the casbah of Dar Kebir (13th century) with the mosque of Lalla Aud (1276) and the palace of Dar Jamay (19th century), and the palace of Dar al-Makzen (end of the 17th century). In 1919 a modern city was begun northeast of the old city. A museum of Islamic art and a museum of folk art are located in Meknès.