port and principal city of northern Morocco. It is located on a bay of the Strait of Gibraltar (Gibraltar, Strait of) 17 miles (27 km) from the southern tip of Spain; Tétouan lies about 40 miles (65 km) to the southeast. Pop. (2004) 669,685.

Tangier is built on the slopes of a chalky limestone hill. The old town (medina), enclosed by 15th-century ramparts, is dominated by a casbah, the sultan's palace (now a museum of Moroccan art), and the Great Mosque. European quarters, whose populations have declined considerably since integration with Morocco in 1956, stretch to the south and west. Tangier has been the summer site of the Moroccan royal residence since 1962. An important port and trade centre, the city has excellent road and rail connections with Fès, Meknès, Rabat, and Casablanca, as well as an international airport and regular shipping services to Europe. The building trades, fishing, and textile and carpet manufacturing supplement the city's vibrant tourist trade.

Tangier and its suburbs dominate the surrounding region, which occupies the northernmost area of the country, situated on a peninsula immediately north of the Gharb lowland plain and adjacent to the Rif Mountains (Rif) that lie to the southeast. Beyond the city, the region is poor in resources. Vegetable growing and poultry breeding have traditionally been the main rural economic pursuits.

Tangier began to play a significant role in history again in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At the end of the 18th century, a British consul and some 100 British citizens resided there and in the surrounding Tétouan region. During the siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish (1779–83), these Britons were expelled by the sultan. Tangier became the diplomatic capital of Morocco in the 19th century, and in 1845 Sir John Drummond Hay began his four-decade tenure there as British representative in Morocco; throughout that period British trade and political influence predominated in the region.

The result of these activities and privileges was that Tangier received an international regime of its own when the rest of the country became a French protectorate in 1912. Already in the proposed Franco-Spanish Agreement of 1902, the two powers had been willing to see the city eventually become neutral, and the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904 stipulated that Tangier should have a special status. This was confirmed at the Algeciras Conference (1906), a meeting that arose partly from calls for Morocco's independence made by the German emperor William II during a visit to Tangier the previous year (these events were part of what came to be called the Moroccan crises). With the establishment of the French protectorate, a commission with French, Spanish, and British members was appointed to oversee the administration of Tangier, and by 1914 it had with difficulty agreed on certain recommendations. The outbreak of World War I necessitated fresh discussions, and a statute was not agreed upon until 1923. Five years later further modifications were introduced, with Great Britain, France, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Portugal, and Italy being recognized as the administering powers. This statute remained operative until June 1940, when Spain took advantage of the fall of France during World War II (1939–45) to occupy the zone in the name of the khalīfah of Tétouan and to impose a Spanish regime on the city. After the war the victorious Allies insisted on Spanish withdrawal, and in October 1945 the international administration was reestablished, with the participation of the United States; Italy, an Axis country during the war, was readmitted later. With some minor modifications, the statute then remained in force until the independence of Morocco in 1956.