Tinghir
| Tinghir | |||||
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| Basic data | |||||
| State : |
 Morocco
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| Region : | Drâa-Tafilalet | ||||
| Province : | Tinghir | ||||
| Coordinates | 31 ° 31 ′ N , 5 ° 32 ′ W | ||||
| Residents : | 36,391 (2004) | ||||
| Height : | 1340 m | ||||
Tinghir , also Tinerhir ( Central Atlas Tamazight ⵜⵉⵏⵖⵉⵔ ; Arabic تنغير, DMG Tinġīr ) is an oasis town in central Morocco in the Drâa-Tafilalet region . The city has about 45,000 inhabitants - most of them were immigrants from various Berber tribes in the last decades of the 20th century .
location
Tinghir is located on the south of the High Atlas extends N10 about 165 kilometers northeast of Ouarzazate and about 150 kilometers west of Erfoud at an altitude of about 1,340 meters above sea level. d. M.
economy
In earlier times, the oasis economy clearly dominated, which spreads in the two large date palm oases south and east of the city and guaranteed year - round self-sufficiency for the residents. Animal husbandry played only a subordinate role in all oases.
Tinghir has been the capital of the newly created province of the same name since 2009 . In addition, it is a regionally important administrative and market location. In the city there are many smaller craft businesses, transport companies, doctors and pharmacies as well as wholesalers and retailers who supply large parts of the area with their products or services. Some families, however, make a substantial living from the money transfers from the men who migrated to the cities of the north.
Cityscape
The very lively city center of Tinghir is characterized by the largely well-preserved and still inhabited Ksar . Between the Ksar and the national road N10, streets laid out at right angles form the administrative and business center. The partially covered market, the central taxi stand and several hotels are also located here.
The districts surrounding the Ksar mostly consist of new, mostly two to four-story houses with walls made of hollow blocks , ceilings and staircases made of concrete and a satellite dish on the roof terrace. After completion of the shell, the houses will be plastered - as is customary in Morocco - and painted in yellowish, light red or pink shades.
On the edges of the date palm oases, there are still numerous multi-storey buildings made of rammed earth , mostly built in the first half of the 20th century and partly still used for residential purposes .
Kasbahs
In order to document his claim to power, Thami El Glaoui had two building complexes of political, strategic and representative significance ( kasbahs ) built in Tinghir in 1919 and 1930 . Both of the monumental-looking buildings have always been viewed by the residents of the city as foreign objects and are in dire decay - they are therefore not accessible to visitors.
In 1944 a Tighremt was established by Cheikh Bassou, the head of a Berber clan rivaling El Glaoui . The building complex has been carefully restored and is now used as the Hotel Tomboctou .
Oases
There are actually two large palm oases that make Tinghir so attractive and invite you to explore - one runs more in an east-west direction and the other in a north-south direction. Both form green bank landscapes along the Oued Todgha and where the fertile soil ends, the development begins. In the past, these were adobe buildings - some of them even multi-storey - with corner towers in the style of the Tighremts , but nothing of them has survived. The still existing - tower and unadorned - clay buildings all date from the 2nd half of the 19th and 1st half of the 20th century. Many are no longer maintained by the owners, because nobody wants to live in the lightless, dusty and now also in danger of collapsing mud houses. Only small farmers who flee the countryside, who are among the poorest in Morocco and who work as day laborers in Tinerhir, have no other choice and are satisfied with the cheapest housing.
Grains (barley), vegetables (beans, chickpeas, carrots, etc.) and tree fruits (dates, figs, pomegranates, olives, etc.) are grown or planted. The trees also provide the shade necessary for the oasis economy . The water is supplied by the meltwater of the Todgha River running down from the mountains, which is transported into small, higher-lying canals with the help of - only temporarily operated - diesel pumps, which have replaced the manual work of earlier times, and from there to the fields.
Surroundings
About 12 kilometers north of Tinghir is the touristic interesting Todra Gorge with its spectacular, about 300 meters high and almost vertically sloping rock walls.
See also
Other important cities on the so-called 'road of the kasbahs' between Ouarzazate and Erfoud are:
literature
- Arnold Betten: Morocco. Antiquity, Berber Traditions and Islam - History, Art and Culture in the Maghreb. DuMont, Ostfildern 2009 p. 304f ISBN 978-3-7701-3935-4
Web links
- Tinghir - Photos and text (Engl.)
- Tinghir and Todgha Gorge - photos + text
- Tinerhir and surroundings - photos + text (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Population statistics Morocco ( Memento from July 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The Kasbah converted into the Hotel Tomboctou , accessed on August 23, 2015