Hollywood discovered Ouarzazate in 1962 when David Lean brought his cameras here for Lawrence of Arabia. The landscape — pre-Saharan plateau, kasbah walls the colour of the earth they were built from, light that photographs like a director of photography's memo — has not changed since. What has changed is the industry that grew around the discovery. The Atlas Corporation Studios, built in 1983, is now the largest film production facility in Africa. Gladiator, The Mummy, Black Hawk Down, Alexander, Babel, Kingdom of Heaven, and four seasons of Game of Thrones have all been filmed in or near the city.
The Kasbah Taourirt, rising from the edge of the old town, was the seat of the Glaoui family — the most powerful Berber clan in southern Morocco and, for a critical period in the mid-twentieth century, the collaborators of the French colonial administration. Thami el-Glaoui supported the French deposition of Sultan Mohammed V in 1953. When independence came in 1955 and Mohammed V returned, Glaoui publicly begged forgiveness on his knees in Rabat. He died three months later. The kasbah he built still stands, occupied by some three hundred families, the older quarters crumbling and the newer quarters lived in with the practicality of people who have nowhere else to go.
Ouarzazate sits at 1,160 metres on the edge of the Sahara, at the junction of three routes that matter to anyone travelling in the south. The road east leads to the Draa Valley — one of the great palm oases of Morocco, 200 kilometres of date palms following the river south toward the desert. The road northeast leads to the Dadès Valley and Todra Gorge. The road south leads, eventually, to the Sahara itself. The city is a waypoint, not a destination — a place to spend a night and organise what comes next.
The Ksar of Aït Benhaddou is forty-five minutes west on the road back toward Marrakech: a fortified village of earthen towers on a hill above a seasonal river, intact enough that it has been used as a set for fifty years of films. UNESCO listed it in 1987. People still live in one section of the ksar. The rest is maintained for the cameras and the tourists who come to stand where Orlando Bloom stood, where Russell Crowe stood, where Daenerys Targaryen stood.
The best time to visit is October to April. Summer temperatures in Ouarzazate regularly reach 42°C and the surrounding desert is at its most hostile. Spring is best: warm days, cold nights, the Draa Valley in blossom. The drive over the Tizi n'Tichka pass from Marrakech — 2,260 metres at the summit, the road following switchbacks above the snowline in winter — is one of the great drives in the country and a reliable indicator that you have left the city entirely behind.
Places
Kasbahs
The Glaoui stronghold rises like a sand castle from Ouarzazate. Part museum, part inhabited ruin — the contrast between restored and collapsing sections tells the story of these buildings.
Museums
Hollywood discovered Morocco in the 1960s and never left. Gladiator, Game of Thrones, Kingdom of Heaven — the sets stand in the desert, plaster painted to look like stone.
Nature
A hidden oasis 12 kilometres south of Ouarzazate, where the Draa Valley begins as a thread of green in the rock desert. The palmeraie is small — a few hundred trees — but the contrast between the palm canopy and the surrounding hammada is absolute. Film crews use it as a location. Locals use it as an orchard. The two uses coexist without apparent friction.
Nature
The high mountain pass that connects Marrakech to Ouarzazate across the High Atlas — 2,260 metres at the summit, the highest paved road in Morocco. The drive takes three hours each way. On the northern side: cedar forests and Berber villages. On the southern side: the landscape drops into the pre-Saharan plain in a series of hairpin bends. The transition from green Morocco to desert Morocco happens here.
Stories from Ouarzazate
Movies
When Ridley Scott needed to rebuild ancient Rome, he went to Ouarzazate. David Lean came first, for Lawrence of Arabia. Then Game of Thrones, Kingdom of Heaven, The Mummy, Babel. The desert has been playing other places for sixty years.
Systems
Morocco has played ancient Egypt, biblical Jerusalem, Yunkai, Pentos, Astapor, Numidia, and the journey of Odysseus. It rarely plays itself. More than 50,000 Moroccans work in an industry built on the fact that this country looks like everywhere else — and nowhere else.
Architecture
Not ruins. A building technology — earth, straw, water, sun — that created one of the most dramatic architectural landscapes on the planet.
Culture
Morocco has doubled for ancient Rome, biblical Jerusalem, Tibet, Egypt, and the surface of Mars. Ouarzazate is Hollywood's favourite backlot.
Nature
Marrakech to the Sahara: four climate zones in 200 kilometres. One of the most dramatic ecological gradients on earth.
Movies
Morocco has doubled for ancient Rome, biblical Jerusalem, Tibet, and Mars. It has played Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and itself. The landscape is a character actor — endlessly versatile, never quite the star.
You might also consider
Journeys that pass through Ouarzazate
Mountains to sand and back. Stars so dense they press against your chest — and a silence that rewrites what you thought quiet meant.
Morocco's deepest canyon — three hundred metres of vertical limestone with barely enough room for the river and your held breath.
The classic — red city to medieval labyrinth via the Sahara. The corridor that defines Moroccan travel.
Plan your visit
Every journey we design includes private guiding, accommodation chosen for character rather than category, and the kind of access that takes years in Morocco to arrange.
Plan Your TripWritten from the medina. Sent when it matters.