Meknes

Meknès , 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.

Meknès, Morocco Meknessa ez‐Zeitoun Originating as a hill‐top kasbah, by the 10th century it had developed into an important market town of a tribe of the Meknessa Berbers. They named it after themselves, Meknessa ez‐Zeitoun ‘Meknès of the Olives’. Their name comes from the Arabic miknās from kanasa ‘to sweep’. Moulay Ismaïl (c.1645–1727) made Meknès the capital of Morocco in 1673, a year after he had succeeded to the throne. After his death in 1727 the city declined and, although the French rejuvenated it when they occupied it in 1911, the capital was transferred to Rabat.