Only Spain and the 14 km Strait of Gibraltar separate them, but France outweighs Morocco on almost every measure. Metropolitan France covers about 551,700 km² against Morocco’s 446,550 km² (a figure that leaves out the disputed territory of Western Sahara), and France had about 69.1 million people in January 2026 compared with the 36.8 million counted in Morocco’s 2024 census. France is also far richer: IMF estimates put its GDP per person at about $52,100 (2026), against about $4,440 for Morocco (2025). The capitals are Paris and Rabat. France’s only official language is French; Morocco’s are Arabic and Amazigh (Berber), yet French remains widely used there, a legacy of the French protectorate of 1912 to 1956.
Which is bigger once Western Sahara is set aside?
France is the larger country, but how much larger depends on what you count on each side. On the French side, the European mainland plus Corsica, known as metropolitan France, measures about 551,695 km² in the figure Wikipedia’s geography article uses; a French government figure is a little lower, at about 543,941 km². Add the overseas regions such as French Guiana, Réunion and Guadeloupe and the total rises to about 632,702 km². Metropolitan France is the third-largest country in Europe after Russia and Ukraine, and the largest in Western Europe.
On the Moroccan side, the standard figure of 446,550 km² covers only the territory whose status is not disputed. Morocco also claims Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that the United Nations lists as a non-self-governing territory. Morocco administers about two-thirds of it and calls it its Southern Provinces, while the Polisario Front claims it as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic; a UN-monitored ceasefire began in 1991 but the question of sovereignty has never been settled. Counting the Moroccan-claimed and partly controlled parts of Western Sahara brings the figure to about 716,550 km², which would make Morocco larger than metropolitan France. Morocco also claims the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on its northern coast.
On the internationally undisputed figures, then, metropolitan France is about a quarter larger than Morocco. Both countries face two seas, with coastlines on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Metropolitan France borders eight countries, from Belgium to Andorra, while Morocco’s land borders are with Algeria (closed since 1994), the Spanish-controlled exclaves and Western Sahara.
Census counts: INSEE’s 69 million against Morocco’s 36.8 million
France has close to twice Morocco’s population. INSEE, the French statistics office, estimated 69,081,996 people in France as a whole in January 2026, of whom 66,792,845 lived in metropolitan France. Morocco’s High Planning Commission counted 36,828,330 people in the census held from 1 to 30 September 2024, up 8.8% from 33.8 million in 2014.
The two countries are also at different points on the demographic curve. Morocco’s fertility rate has fallen from 7.2 children per woman in 1960 to 1.97 in 2024, and life expectancy has risen from 47 to 76.4 years over the same period. Its population is now 62.8% urban. Casablanca, the largest city and main port, had more than 3.23 million inhabitants in 2024, followed by Tangier (1.27 million), Fez (1.18 million) and Marrakesh (1.01 million). Rabat, the capital, is smaller than all four. In France the capital dominates instead: the Paris metropolitan area holds more than 13 million people.
The populations are linked by migration. After the protectorate ended, many Moroccans moved to France from the 1960s onward in search of work. The 2011 French census recorded 433,026 people born in Morocco, and French citizens of Moroccan descent form the second-largest group of non-European origin in France, after people of Algerian descent.
How large is the wealth gap between France and Morocco?
Very large. In nominal terms, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook puts France’s GDP at about $3.6 trillion in 2026, the world’s seventh largest, against about $166 billion for Morocco in 2025. Per person, that is about $52,083 for France and about $4,440 for Morocco, a ratio of roughly 12 to 1. Adjusting for lower prices in Morocco narrows the gap: in purchasing-power terms the figures are about $68,567 and $11,270, a ratio of roughly 6 to 1. The years differ slightly because the two infobox figures come from different IMF releases.
Other indicators tell the same story. France scored 0.920 on the UN Human Development Index for 2023, “very high” and 26th in the world; Morocco scored 0.710, “high” and 120th. Morocco’s economy is nonetheless the fifth largest in Africa. France uses the euro; Morocco has its own currency, the dirham.
Mont Blanc, Toubkal and the Atlas: two very different landscapes
France has the higher summit. Mont Blanc rises to about 4,807 m (15,772 ft) on the border between France and Italy, above Chamonix and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains in Haute-Savoie. It is the highest mountain in Europe outside the Caucasus, and France and Italy have long disputed who owns the summit area. Morocco’s highest peak is Toubkal, 4,167 m (13,671 ft) high, in the High Atlas about 63 km south of Marrakesh. It is the highest point in North Africa and in the Arab world, and climbers usually reach it in two days from the village of Imlil.
The lie of the land differs more than the peaks do. France is mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in the north and west, with mountains concentrated in the south and east: the Massif Central, the Pyrenees on the Spanish border and the Alps. Morocco is far more mountainous. The Rif rises in the north, while the Atlas ranges, which stretch about 2,500 km through Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, cross the centre and south and separate the coasts from the Sahara. Both ranges are home mainly to Berber communities. Our guide to the Atlas Mountains follows the range from Morocco into Algeria and Tunisia.
Morocco’s mountains are also more active. On 8 September 2023 an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 to 6.9, with its epicentre about 73 km south-west of Marrakesh in the High Atlas, killed at least 2,960 people.
Why is French spoken in Rabat and Casablanca?
Because France ruled most of Morocco for 44 years. The Moroccan state traces its roots to the Idrisid dynasty founded in 788, and the Alawi dynasty, which still reigns, took power in 1631. Morocco’s strategic position at the mouth of the Mediterranean drew renewed European interest, and in 1904 France and Spain carved out zones of influence there. After the Algeciras Conference of 1906 and the Agadir Crisis of 1911, Sultan Abd al-Hafid signed the Treaty of Fes on 30 March 1912 under duress. It made most of Morocco a French protectorate; Spain became the protecting power over a northern coastal zone and a southern Saharan zone, and Tangier was later run as an international zone from 1925 to 1956.
Under the treaty the Sultan stayed on the throne, but the French Resident-General, starting with Hubert Lyautey, held real power over both domestic and foreign affairs. Settlers bought large areas of farmland and developed mines and harbours. Between 1921 and 1926, Abd el-Krim’s uprising in the Rif set up the short-lived Republic of the Rif, which French and Spanish forces suppressed by 1927. Moroccan soldiers served in the French army in both world wars.
Pressure for independence grew after the Istiqlal (Independence) Party was founded in 1943. When France exiled Sultan Mohammed V to Madagascar in 1953, opposition spread; he was allowed back in 1955, and the Franco-Moroccan Joint Declaration of 2 March 1956 ended the protectorate. Spain gave up its northern zone a month later but kept Ceuta and Melilla, and returned Ifni only in 1969. Mohammed V took the title of king in 1957.
Today Morocco’s constitution names Arabic and Amazigh as official languages. In the 2024 census, 92.7% of the population spoke Arabic, mostly the Moroccan dialect known as Darija, and 24.8% spoke a Berber language: Tashelhit (14.2%), Central Atlas Tamazight (7.4%) or Tarifit (3.2%). French has no official status, but it is used in government, the media, large companies and diplomacy, and it is a compulsory subject in all schools. English is the most popular choice of additional foreign language. France, by contrast, has used French for its legal acts since the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539. Our guide to the languages spoken in Morocco covers the dialects in more depth.
The political systems also differ. France has been a semi-presidential republic since Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic in 1958. Morocco is a semi-constitutional monarchy with an elected two-chamber parliament, but the king keeps wide powers over the military, foreign policy and religious affairs; a reformed constitution was approved by referendum in July 2011.
How different is the weather in Paris, Rabat and Marrakesh?
On the coast, the difference is modest; inland, it is stark. Most of France has an oceanic climate with cool, wet winters and mild summers; the Mediterranean south around the Gulf of Lion is hot and dry in summer. Paris averages a daily high of 25.7 °C in July and 7.6 °C in January (1991–2020 normals). Rabat, cooled by the Atlantic, is only slightly warmer in summer, at 27.2 °C in July, but much milder in winter, at 17.4 °C in January. Inland, Marrakesh reaches an average high of 37.7 °C in July.
Rainfall is where the gap is clearest. Paris gets rain spread across the year, about 634 mm in total. Rabat receives about 522 mm, almost all between October and April, with practically none in July and August. Marrakesh, inland on the plain north of the High Atlas, gets only about 221 mm a year.
Beyond the mountains, Morocco’s territory runs into the Sahara, a landscape with no equivalent anywhere in metropolitan France. For a month-by-month look at the coast, the mountains and the Sahara, see our guide to the climate of Morocco.