Dar el-Makhzen (Kasbah Palace), Tangier

Dar el-Makhzen, the Kasbah Palace, stands on the highest point of the Tangier Kasbah on Place de la Kasbah in northern Morocco. The palace dates to the late 17th century, after Sultan Moulay Ismail's forces took Tangier from the English garrison in 1684 and the Alawite state fortified the city's upper citadel. Built on the Kasbah's older fortress ground, it served for generations as the residence of the sultan's governors and as an administrative seat, the word makhzen referring to the Moroccan state apparatus. In the early 20th century the Kasbah was home to powerful figures of the pre-protectorate era, and during the international period of Tangier the building took on a new cultural role. It was turned into a museum of Moroccan arts and antiquities, and it still operates as the Kasbah Museum. Architecturally the complex follows the courtyard model of Moroccan palace design: rooms open onto a central patio ringed by arcades, with carved cedar ceilings, zellige tilework, plaster tracery and painted wooden doors. A second garden courtyard, planted in the Andalusian manner with orange trees and fragrant shrubs, forms a quiet space away from the street. The interiors keep their decorative woodwork and tiled floors, and the rooms are arranged around themed displays rather than a strict timeline. The building has been restored in stages, with recent campaigns repairing roofs, plaster and tiled surfaces, and its preservation is generally good, though some wings can be closed for works. Visitors reach it through the Bab el-Assa gate area and the quiet lanes of the Kasbah quarter, and the terrace outside gives a wide view over the Strait of Gibraltar toward Spain. The palace remains one of the best places in Tangier to see how a Moroccan governor's household was organised and decorated.