Casablanca-Settat Sightseeing Picks
Five sights carry almost all of Casablanca-Settat’s visual identity, and two of them aren’t even in Casablanca.
The minaret that dominates every skyline shot
The Hassan II Mosque’s minaret rises 210 meters straight out of the Atlantic, one of the tallest minarets anywhere until Algeria’s Djamaa El-Djazair overtook it in 2024. It reads best from the shoreline at dusk, when spray from the waves catches the last light against the tower. Getting inside is a separate matter: non-Muslim visitors need an official guided tour , and a combined mosque and Museum of Moroccan Judaism visit pairs the mosque’s interior with the only museum devoted to Jewish history and heritage in the Arab world, both worth the same afternoon.
A single beam of light, underground in El Jadida
Roughly 100 kilometers southwest, the Portuguese Cistern sits beneath El Jadida’s fortress walls: a Gothic-vaulted 16th-century chamber where sunlight through a ceiling oculus hits a shallow sheet of water and mirrors the stone columns above it back onto its own surface. It is the single most photographed interior in the region for good reason, and it holds up in person better than most underground spaces do. A shore excursion covering El Jadida and neighboring Azemmour walks both the ramparts and the cistern with a guide. The whole fortified old town carries UNESCO World Heritage status as the Portuguese City of Mazagan.
Place Mohammed V, for the architecture rather than a single building
Back in downtown Casablanca, Place Mohammed V is less a single sight than an ensemble: the clock-towered Wilaya, the old Grande Poste, and Bank Al-Maghrib’s own tower, all built in the French colonial Mauresque style of the 1920s and 30s and still functioning as working government buildings rather than museum pieces. Pigeons, a central fountain, and genuine foot traffic keep it feeling like a real square rather than a preserved set, and none of the surrounding buildings charge admission for a look at their exteriors.
La Sqala’s cannons face the same ocean the mosque does
La Sqala, an 18th-century stone sea bastion near the old medina, still carries its original brass cannons pointed out toward the Atlantic port. It works as a shorter, quieter stop than the mosque or the cistern, and its restaurant inside the fortification walls makes it easy to turn a look at the ramparts into a full stop rather than a five-minute detour. Morning light on the stonework tends to draw fewer people than the sunset crowd the Corniche pulls a few hundred meters away.
Oualidia’s lagoon, for the view rather than the oysters
Two hours southwest, the Oualidia lagoon offers a different kind of sightseeing entirely: emerald channels of calm saltwater separated from the open Atlantic by a long golden sandbar, best seen from the higher ground above the town rather than at water level. It rewards a slower visit than a quick photo stop, since the light changes the color of the water noticeably between morning and late afternoon, and the sandbar itself shifts shape season to season as the tides rework it.
Verdict: the mosque and Place Mohammed V cover a single Casablanca day well; treat El Jadida’s cistern as the trip’s actual highlight if only one regional day trip fits the schedule, since nothing in the city matches it for atmosphere. For the walking routes that connect these sights on foot rather than by car, see the walking tours guide .
Visit the Portuguese Cistern around midday if possible; the angle of the light through the oculus is strongest a few hours either side of noon, and a cloudy morning can flatten the whole effect.