Anti Atlas

The Anti-Atlas forms Morocco's rugged transition from the High Atlas toward the Sahara. Its southern edge overlooks dry highlands, while the eastern Jbel Saghro and northern Jbel Sirwa stretch the system into neighbouring ranges. Jbel Sirwa is volcanic and reaches 3,304 metres. Between the peaks lie high plateaux, fissured slopes, stony valleys and occasional patches of cultivation. Tafraoute is the best-known central place in the Chleuh Berber country, a region of small settlements rather than large cities.

Life depends on making use of limited water. North and west-facing slopes receive somewhat more rain, and terraced fields enclosed by dry-stone walls make the most of soil and runoff. Kasbahs acted as shelters and supply depots for kin, forming fortified points within a dispersed settlement pattern. Neolithic cave paintings show that people have long moved through these mountains. The vegetation changes from drought-tolerant herbs and shrubs toward thorny plants as one goes south.

Overgrazing has endangered parts of this cover, and erosion persists. At the same time, the range's deep geological history reaches back hundreds of millions of years, when continental collisions built mountains associated with the ancient Central Pangean chain. The present landscape has been shaped by that deep past and by generations of pastoral and farming communities.