Saïdia (Arabic: السعيدية, romanized: Al-sa'idiyya; Berber languages: ⴰⵊⵔⵓⴷ, Ajrud), known as the "Blue Pearl", is a coastal town in northeastern Morocco. It is located in the Berkane Province in the north of Beni Znassen region, lying in the adjacent metropolitan area of Berkane itself, along the Mediterranean Sea to the north and Moroccan-Algerian border to the east. Its 14 km (9 mile) coastline is one of the longest beaches of Morocco and is characterized by its golden sand and Mediterranean climate, making it a popular international tourist destination. It hosts numerous resorts and attractions, including private beach resorts, shopping malls, golf courses, and other sports centers.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (March 2009) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,158 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Saïdia]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Saïdia}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Country, Region ...

Saïdia السعيدية (Arabic) ⴰⵊⵔⵓⴷ (Standard Moroccan Tamazight)
Saïdia Location in Morocco Show map of Morocco Saïdia Saïdia (Africa) Show map of Africa
Coordinates: 35°05′06″N 02°14′21″W
Country	Morocco
Region	Oriental
Population  (2010)
• Total	3,871
Time zone	UTC+0 (WET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (WEST)

Close

Saïdia's marina covers an area of 290,000 square meters (70 acres), with 740 berths and modern marina facilities. Tourists are attracted by its traditional folk music festival every August. It is surrounded by a natural bird preserve of marsh and woodland called Moulouya National Parc. Access to the main beach is through a eucalyptus forest.

Saïdia climate is semi-arid (Köppen climate classification: BSh). It is mild all year round, highly influenced by maritime winds. In summer, the average maximum and minimum temperatures are 27–30 °C (81–86 °F) and 19–22 °C (66–72 °F), respectively, and, in winter, 17–20 °C (63–68 °F) and 9–12 °C (48–54 °F).^[1] Autumn and winter are the wettest seasons, having more than 80% of total annual rainfall.

The nucleus of Saïdia dates from 1883 and was the work of Sultan Hassan I, who built a 15,600-square-meter (3¾ acre) casbah (fortress) on the left bank of the mouth of the river Kiss. Its purpose was to monitor and regulate the movement of people to and from Algeria, which was then under French sovereignty. After Morocco became a French protectorate in 1913, Saïdia proved popular with French settlers and became a resort. After Moroccan independence, Saïdia continued to attract visitors and has become one of the country's most popular tourist attractions.