Agadir

Agadir lies on Morocco's Atlantic shore between the southern High Atlas and the Sous basin, just north of the point where the Sous River reaches the ocean. Its Berber name means wall, enclosure or fortress, while the city's fuller name refers to the nearby cape. A map of 1325 marked Porto Mesegina near the later site, and by the late medieval period Agadir was a town of some renown. Portuguese occupiers established Santa Cruz in 1505, but a Saadi siege ended their foothold in 1541.

A hilltop kasbah then anchored Moroccan authority. In the seventeenth century, the harbour exchanged sugar, wax, copper, hides and skins with Europe for manufactures, weapons and textiles, though it lacked a true wharf. An earthquake in 1731 closed the port, and the sultanate later favoured the new town of Essaouira to the north. The Sous hinterland remained essential to the town's commercial life, while its position between the Sous floodplain and the Atlantic made the site useful for landing goods and receiving products from inland farms and herders.