Early occupation The oldest known map that includes an indication of Agadir is from 1325: at the approximate location of the modern city, it names a place it calls
Porto Mesegina, after a Berber tribe name that had been recorded as early as the 12th century, the
Mesguina (also known as the
Ksima). At the end of the medieval period, Agadir was a town of some renown. The first known mention of its name,
Agadir al-harba, was recorded in 1510.
Portuguese occupation In the late 15th century the
Portuguese began to occupy positions along the Moroccan coast. In 1505 the Portuguese nobleman João Lopes de Sequeira occupied the area. He built a wooden castle at the foot of a hill, near a
spring, After this, the Portuguese were forced to abandon most of the Moroccan areas that they had acquired control of between 1505 and 1520, including Agadir,
Safi and
Azemmour. By 1550, Portugal's only holding in Morocco was Mazagan (now
El Jadida),
Tangier and
Ceuta. Following defeat in Morocco, the Portuguese turned their attention to India and Brazil, nations that they had more success pacifying. The story of the Portuguese presence (from the installation in 1505 until their defeat on 12 March 1541) is described in a manuscript (published for the first time, with a French translation by
Pierre de Cenival, in 1934) entitled "Este He O Origem e Comeco e Cabo da Villa de Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gue D'Agoa de Narba", written by an anonymous author who was captured in 1934 and was imprisoned for five years in
Taroudannt (cf. "Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gue d'Agoa de Narba – Estudo e Crónica", Joao Marinho e Santos, José Manuel Azevedo e Silva e Mohammed Nadir, bilingual edition, Viseu 2007).
Moroccan rule After the Sa'di victory the site was then left unoccupied for years until Muhammad al-Shaykh's successor,
Abdallah al-Ghalib (r. 1557–1574), built a new fortress (or
kasbah) on the hilltop. In exchange, Europeans sold their manufactured goods there, particularly weapons and textiles. Under the reign of Sultan
Moulay Ismail (1645–1727) and his successors, the trade with France, which had previously been an active partner, diminished, and trade with the English and Dutch increased. In 1731, the town was completely destroyed by an earthquake. After that, Agadir's harbour was ordered to be closed, and an alternative,
Essaouira, was established farther north. After a long period of prosperity during the reigns of the Saadian and Alawite dynasties, Agadir declined from 1760 because of the pre-eminence given to the competing port of Essaouira by the Alawite Sultan
Mohammed ben Abdallah who wanted to punish the Souss for rebelling against his authority. This decline lasted a century and a half. In 1789, a European traveler gave a brief description of Agadir: "It is now a ghost town, there are no more than a few houses and these are crumbling into ruins". In 1881, Sultan
Hassan I reopened the harbour to trade in order to supply the expeditions he planned in the south. These expeditions, which were to reassert his authority over the Souss tribes and counter the plans of English and Spanish, were held in 1882 and 1886. In 1884,
Charles de Foucauld described in
Reconnaissance au Maroc (Reconnaissance in Morocco) his rapid passage to Agadir from the east: On the pretext of a call for help from German companies in the valley of the Souss, Germany decided on 1 July 1911, to extend its interests in Morocco and assert a claim on the country. It sent to the bay of Agadir, (whose harbour was, until 1881, closed to foreign trade) the which was quickly joined by the cruiser
Berlin. Very strong international reaction, particularly from Great Britain, surprised Germany and triggered the
Agadir Crisis between France and Germany. War was threatened. After tough negotiations, a Franco-German treaty was finally signed on 4 November 1911, giving a free hand to France, who would be able to establish its
protectorate over Morocco in return for giving up some colonies in Africa. It was only then that the gunboat
Panther and the cruiser
Berlin left the bay of Agadir. Due to a miscalculation, the German sales representative
Hermann Wilberg, who was sent to provide the pretext for the intervention, only arrived at Agadir three days after the
Panther arrived. In 1913, the cities (Agadir N'Ighir and Founti) totaled less than a thousand inhabitants. On 15 June 1913 French troops landed in Agadir. In 1916, the first pier was built near Founti – a simple jetty, later known as the "Portuguese jetty", which remained until the end of the 20th century. After 1920, under the French protectorate, a port was built and the city saw its first development with the construction of the old Talborjt district located on the plateau at the foot of the hill. Two years later, beside Talborjt along the fault line of the river Tildi construction of the popular district of Yahchech began. Around 1930, Agadir was an important stop for the French airmail service
Aéropostale and was frequented by
Saint-Exupéry and
Mermoz. From 1930 onwards, a modern central city began to be built according to the plans of the urban planner
Henri Prost, director of the Protectorate's Urban Planning Department, and his deputy
Albert Laprade. The design featured a horseshoe layout centred on a large avenue perpendicular to the waterfront – the Avenue Lyautey, since renamed Avenue du Général Kettani. In the 1950s, urban development continued under the direction of the Director of Urban Planning Morocco, Michel Ecochard. After 1950 and the opening of the new commercial port, the city grew with fishing, canning, agriculture, and mining. It also began to open up to tourism due to its climate and hotel infrastructure. Several years later from 1950 to 1956 Agadir organized the and, from 1954 to 1956, the
Moroccan Grand Prix. In 1959, the port was visited by the yacht of the Greek shipping magnate
Aristotle Onassis and his guest,
Winston Churchill. By 1960, Agadir numbered over 40,000 residents when at 15 minutes to midnight on 29 February 1960, it was again almost totally destroyed by an
earthquake of magnitude 5.7 on the Richter scale that lasted 15 seconds, burying the city and killing more than a third of the population. The death toll was estimated at 15,000. The earthquake destroyed the old Kasbah.
Agadir after 1960 The current city was rebuilt further south, led by the architects associated with
GAMMA, including
Jean-François Zevaco,
Elie Azagury,
Pierre Coldefy, and
Claude Verdugo, with consultation from
Le Corbusier. Agadir became a large city of over half a million by 2004, with a large port with four basins: the commercial port with a draft of 17 metres, triangle fishing, fishing port, and a pleasure boat port with marina. Agadir was the premier sardine port in the world in the 1980s and has a beach stretching over 10 km with fine seafront promenades. Its climate has 340 days of sunshine per year which allows for swimming all year round. The winter is warm and in summer, haze is common. With Marrakech, Agadir is a very important centre for tourism to Morocco, and the city is the most important fishing port in the country. Business is also booming with the export of citrus fruit and vegetables produced in the fertile valley of
Souss. On 12 December 2022, an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 hit Agadir Province. The earthquake struck at a depth of three kilometres beneath the epicentre, off the coast of Agadir. == Geography and climate ==