Chefchaouen or Chaouen The Bleu City

Chefchaouen or Chaouen (Arabic: شفشاون‎‎ Shafshāwan (articulated IPA: ʃəfˈʃɑˑwən); Berber: ⴰⵛⵛⴰⵡⵏ Ashawen) is a city in northwest Morocco. It is the central town of the region of a similar name, and is noted for its structures in shades of blue.

Chefchaouen is arranged in the Rif Mountains, only inland from Tangier and Tetouan. The city was established in 1471,[1] as a little fortification which still exists right up 'til the present time, by Moulay Ali Ben Moussa Ben Rached El Alami (a relative of Ibn Machich and Idris I, and through them, of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) to battle the Portuguese attacks of northern Morocco.[2] Along with the Ghomara tribes of the area, numerous Moriscos and Jews settled here after the Spanish Reconquista in medieval times.[3] In 1920, the Spanish seized Chefchaouen to shape some portion of Spanish Morocco. Spanish troops detained Abd el-Krim in the kasbah from 1916 to 1917, after he conversed with the German diplomat Dr. Walter Zechlin (1879–1962). (In the wake of overcoming him with the assistance of the French, Abd el-Krim was expelled to Réunion in 1926.) Spain restored the city after the autonomy of Morocco in 1956.