The early Berbers were unmoved by the colonising Phoenicians, and even the Romans did little to upset the Berber way of life after the sack of Carthage in 146 BC. All the same, the Romans ushered in a long period of peace during which many cities were founded, and the Berbers of the coastal plains became city dwellers. Christianity turned up in the 3rd century AD, and again the Berbers asserted their traditional dislike of centralised authority by following Donatus (a Christian sect leader who claimed that the Donatists alone constituted the true church).

Islam burst onto the world stage in the 7th century when the Arab armies swept out of Arabia. Quickly conquering Egypt, the Arabs controlled all of North Africa by the start of the 8th century. By the next century much of North Africa had fragmented, with the move towards a united Morocco steadily growing. A fundamentalist Berber movement emerged from the chaos caused by the Arab invasion, overrunning Morocco and Muslim Andalusia (in Spain). The Almoravids founded Marrakesh as their capital, but they were soon replaced by the Almohads.

Under these new rulers, a professional civil service was set up and the cities of Fès, Marrakesh, Tlemcen and Rabat reached the peak of their cultural development. But eventually weakened by Christian defeats in Spain, and paying the price for heavily taxing tribes, the Muslim (or Moorish) rule began to wane. In their place came the Merenids, from the Moroccan hinterland, and the area again blossomed - until the fall of Spain to the Christians in 1492 unleashed a revolt that dissolved the new dynasty within 100 years.

After a number of short-lived dynasties rose and fell, the Alawite family secured a stranglehold in the 1630s that remains firm to this day. Although it was rarely a smooth ride, this pragmatic dynasty managed to keep Morocco independent for more than three centuries.

Enter the European traders in the late 19th century, and a long era of colonial renovations. Suddenly France, Spain and Germany were all keen on hijacking the country for its strategic position and rich trade resources. France won out and occupied virtually the entire country by 1912. Spain clung to a small coastal protectorate and Tangier was declared an international zone.

Relatively speaking, the first French resident-general, Marshal Lyautey, respected the Arab culture. He generously resisted the urge to destroy the existing Moroccan towns and instead built French villes nouvelles (new towns) alongside them. He made Rabat on the Atlantic coast the new capital and developed the port of Casablanca. The sultan remained, but as little more than a figurehead. Lyautey's successors were not so sensitive. Their efforts to speed French settlement prompted the people of the Rif Mountains, led by the Berber scholar Abd el-Krim, to rise up against both colonial forces. It was only through the combined efforts of 25,000 Spanish-French troops that Abd el-Krim was eventually forced to surrender in 1926. By the 1930s, more than 200,000 French had made Morocco home. WWII saw Allied forces use Morocco as a base from which to drive the Germans out of North Africa.

With the war over, Sultan Mohammed V inspired an independence party which finally secured Moroccan freedom in 1956. Tangier was reclaimed in the process, but Spain refused to hand over the northern towns of Ceuta and Melilla (to this day they remain Spain's last tenuous claim on Africa).

Mohammed V promoted himself to king in 1957 and was succeeded four years later by his son, Hassan II. The new King worked labouriously for his Kingdom's future, under his reign Morocco's mentality and demographics changed drastically allowing it to become liberal with a pluralist political system and vast interior developments giving morocco the status of an emerging country which has attracted large sums of foreign investments.

Upon the death of King Hassan II, on July 23 1999, his son ascended the throne two days later as King Mohamed VI, becoming a monarch of the Alaoutian dynasty.
Since King Mohammed VI was enthroned in 1999, the country has instituted sweeping political and economic changes. Although poverty is still widespread and unemployment remains high, initiatives to attract foreign investment and tourism are bringing new opportunities to urban areas. The human rights record is markedly improved from the previous regime, and today ranks among the cleanest across Africa and the Middle East. Women have benefitted from education initiatives and expanded rights, and new protections for Berber (Amazigh) culture include the introduction of Tamazight (written Berber) in schools.

Morocco's parliament has only nominal power, but the country's first municipal elections in 2002 were hailed as a step towards democratisation. Islamist and other political factions are closely monitored, as is the news media. Two territorial disputes remain: the Western Sahara, claimed by the indigenous Sahrawi Polisario Front, and the Spanish-occupied enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, on Morocco's Mediterranean coast.