1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mazagan

MAZAGAN (El Jadīda), a port on the Atlantic coast of Morocco in 33° 16′ N. 8° 26′ W. Pop. (1908), about 12,000, of whom a fourth are Jews and some 400 Europeans. It is the port for Marrákesh, from which it is 110 m. nearly due north, and also for the fertile province of Dukálla. Mazagan presents from the sea a very un-Moorish appearance; it has massive Portuguese walls of hewn stone. The exports, which include beans, almonds, maize, chick-peas, wool, hides, wax, eggs, &c., were valued at £360,000 in 1900, £364,000 in 1904, and £248,000 in 1906. The imports (cotton goods, sugar, tea, rice, &c.) were valued at £280,000 in 1900, £286,000 in 1904, and £320,000 in 1906. About 46% of the trade is with Great Britain and 34% with France. Mazagan was built in 1506 by the Portuguese, who abandoned it to the Moors in 1769 and established a colony, New Mazagan, on the shores of Para in Brazil.

See A. H. Dyé, “Les ports du Maroc” in Bull. Soc. Geog. Comm. Paris, xxx. 325–332 (1908), and British consular reports.