Marrakech Named a Gate After Its Tanners. The Trade Is Still Inside

Around 1126 the Almoravid emir Ali ibn Yusuf built the first walls around Marrakech. One of its gates was called Bab ad-Debbagh, the Gate of the Tanners, after the leather workers whose yards lay beside it. According to Wikipedia, tanneries have stood in that part of the city since the Almoravid period, which makes the leather trade older than most of the buildings tourists come to see.

That is the useful way to think about the medina. It is a working craft city that happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site, not a museum with shops attached. The trick is knowing where to look and how to buy.

A city built on trade

Marrakech was founded around 1070 by Abu Bakr ibn Umar as the capital of the Almoravid dynasty, though some sources give 1062 or 1078. Its old walled city, the medina, was inscribed by UNESCO in 1985 and covers 1,107 hectares.

The commercial heart is the souks. Wikipedia counts 18 of them, employing more than 40,000 people in pottery, copperware, leather and other crafts. Historically each souk was organized by trade, so leather sat with leather, carpets with carpets and metalwork with metalwork. That logic still helps. If you want slippers, follow the slippers.

The square of Jemaa el-Fnaa sits at the edge of the souks. It began as an open market space east of the Almoravid fortress, and its name is usually explained as the ruined mosque, after an unfinished mosque of the late 16th century. It is the medina's front door.

Leather, and how to buy it

Leather is one of the medina's oldest trades, and the Moroccan slipper is the obvious purchase. Our advice is about quality, not haggling theater. Turn the slipper over and look at the stitching where sole meets upper. It should be tight and even, with no glue showing at the seam. Press the leather. Good leather springs back and smells of leather, not of chemicals or paint. Check that the color is the same inside and out, because surface-dyed leather can rub off on socks and floors.

Rugs and woven textiles are the other serious purchase, and the hardest to judge quickly. Turn a rug over and look at the back. The pattern should be as clear there as on the front, and the knots should be even. Ask what the pile and the warp are made of, and whether the dyes are natural. A good seller will answer without hurrying you.

The same rules apply to bags and belts. Look for edges that are finished rather than raw, hardware that feels solid, and lining that is stitched in rather than glued. Then compare. With 18 souks and thousands of stalls, the first shop is rarely the best one.

Tannery visits are the other draw near Bab Debbagh. The yards are workplaces first and sights second. Go in daylight, decide in advance whether you want a guided visit, and be wary of anyone in the street who insists on taking you there.

Buildings worth the detour

Between purchases, three buildings explain the craft that surrounds them.

The *Ben Youssef Madrasa* is the medina's showpiece. It was commissioned by the Saadian sultan Abdallah al-Ghalib and completed in 1564 to 1565. It has 130 student rooms that once housed up to 800 students, and its courtyard is a lesson in Moroccan finishing, with zellij tilework on the lower walls, carved stucco above and cedar wood at the top. It closed for restoration in November 2018 and reopened in April 2022.

*Dar Si Said* is a palace built between 1894 and 1900 for Si Sa'id ibn Musa, a vizier and the brother of the grand vizier Ba Ahmad. It now houses the National Museum of Weaving and Carpets, and reopened in 2018 after renovation. The September 2023 earthquake damaged it significantly and it closed for repairs, so check whether it has reopened before you go.

The *Majorelle Garden*, outside the medina walls, is the modern counterpoint. The painter Jacques Majorelle began it in 1923, commissioned a Cubist villa from the architect Paul Sinoir in 1931 and opened the garden to visitors in 1947. The intense cobalt he used throughout is now called Majorelle Blue. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé bought and restored the property in the 1980s, Saint Laurent's ashes were scattered there after his death in 2008, and the Yves Saint Laurent Museum opened nearby in 2017. The museum's own site lists it as open daily except Wednesdays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Marrakech by the dates

Dates from Wikipedia's articles on Marrakesh, Bab Debbagh, the Ben Youssef Madrasa, Dar Si Said and the Majorelle Garden.

Planning the trip

Give the medina at least two full days, one for the souks and one for the buildings, and stay inside the walls if you can, in a riad. Mornings are usually calmer for shopping, and stallholders tend to be more willing to talk about how things are made before the crowds arrive.

Write down the name of any shop you like, because finding it again in the lanes is harder than it sounds. Carry small cash, agree on a price before anything is wrapped, and walk away politely if it does not feel right. There will be another stall. Buy the things that will age well, plain leather and good weaving, rather than the novelty that looked best under the lamps.

The approach is the same one we take in our Kyoto craft guide and in Florence's Oltrarno, where makers still sell from the places they work. Saint Laurent also turns up in our history of the Breton stripe. For more, browse our city guides and the full Travel section.

Start at the Gate of the Tanners. Nine centuries on, the name still tells you what the city sells best.