[7] Ibn Khaldun ascribed the name to the Anfaça, a branch of the Auréba [ar] tribe of the Maghreb, though the sociologist André Adam refuted this claim due to the absence of the third syllable.

[7] Nahum Slouschz gave a Hebrew etymology, citing the Lexicon of Gesenius: anâphâh (a type of bird) or anaph (face, figure), though Adam refuted this arguing that even a Judaized population would still have spoken Tamazight.

André Adam mentions the legend of the Sufi saint and merchant Allal al-Qairawani, who supposedly came from Tunisia and settled in Casablanca with his wife Lalla al-Baiḍāʾ (لالة البيضاء White Lady).

[8] In fact, on a low hill slightly inland above the ruins of Anfa and just to the west of today's city centre, it appears there was a white-washed structure, possibly a Sufi zawiya that acted as a landmark to sailors.

[citation needed] In his book Description of Africa, Leo Africanus refers to ancient Casablanca as "Anfa", a great city founded in the Berber kingdom of Barghawata in 744 AD.

The town was finally rebuilt between 1756 and 1790 by Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah, the grandson of Moulay Ismail and an ally of George Washington, with the help of Spaniards from the nearby emporium.

[21] In response, the French bombarded the city in August 1907 with multiple gunboats and landed troops inside the town, causing severe damage and killing between 600 and 3,000 Moroccans.

The Western Task Force, composed of American units led by Major General George S. Patton and Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt, carried out the invasions of Mehdia, Fedhala, and Asfi.

Also in attendance were the Free France generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud, though they played minor roles and didn't participate in the military planning.

On 7 April 1947, a massacre of working class Moroccans, carried out by Senegalese Tirailleurs in the service of the French colonial army, was instigated just as Sultan Muhammed V was due to make a speech in Tangier appealing for independence.

[39] Riots in Casablanca took place from 7–8 December 1952, in response to the assassination of the Tunisian labor unionist Farhat Hached by La Main Rouge—the clandestine militant wing of French intelligence.

Among those received by King Muhammad V were Gamal Abd An-Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Modibo Keïta, and Ahmed Sékou Touré, Ferhat Abbas.

[46][47][48] The protests started as a peaceful march to demand the right to public higher education for Morocco, but expanded to include concerns of labourers, the unemployed, and other marginalized segments of society, and devolved into vandalism and rioting.

[46] King Hassan II blamed the events on teachers and parents, and declared in a speech to the nation on 30 March 1965: "There is no greater danger to the State than a so-called intellectual.

"[50][51] On 6 June 1981, the Casablanca Bread Riots took place,[52] which were sparked by a sharp increase in the price of necessities such as butter, sugar, wheat flour, and cooking oil following a period of severe drought.

Although the counter-demonstration attracted half a million participants, the movement for change started in 2000 was influential on King Mohammed VI, and he enacted a new mudawana, or family law, in early 2004, meeting some of the demands of women's rights activists.

[56] On 16 May 2003, 33 civilians were killed and more than 100 people were injured when Casablanca was hit by a multiple suicide bomb attack carried out by Moroccans and claimed by some to have been linked to al-Qaeda.

[91] Jean-Louis Cohen highlights the role of Jewish patrons in the architecture and urban development of Casablanca, particularly in construction of the overwhelming majority of the city's tallest buildings during the interwar period.

Wydad AC, founded in 1937, also compete in Botola and play their home games at the Stade Mohammed V. Both have a strong reputation on continental competitions, having both won the CAF Champions League three times.

Once completed, it will replace the Stade Mohamed V. The initial idea of the stadium was for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, for which Morocco lost their bid to South Africa.

[121] The École des Beaux-Arts of Casablanca was founded in 1919 by a French Orientalist painter named Édouard Brindeau de Jarny, who started his career teaching drawing at Lycée Lyautey.

[129] With his staged nude postcard photos taken in Casablanca's colonial brothel quarter, Flandrin was also responsible for disseminating the orientalist image of Moroccan women as sexual objects.

[139][140] The films Ali Zaoua (2000), Horses of God (2012), and Razzia (2017) of Nabil Ayouch, a French director of Moroccan heritage, deal with street crime, terrorism and social issues in Casablanca, respectively.

[150][151] However, the city council voted to abandon the metro project in 2014 due to high costs, and decided to continue expanding the already operating tram system instead.

Casablanca is well-served by international flights to Europe, especially French and Spanish airports, and has regular connections to North American, Middle Eastern and sub-Saharan African destinations.

The older, smaller Casablanca-Anfa Airport to the west of the city, served certain destinations including Damascus and Tunis, and was largely closed to international civilian traffic in 2006.

Compagnie de Transports au Maroc (CTM) offers private intercity coach buses on various lines run servicing most notable Moroccan towns, as well as a number of European cities.

Supratours, an affiliate of ONCF, also offers coach bus service at a slightly lower cost, departing from a station on Wilad Zian Street.

As is standard Moroccan practice, petits taxis, typically small-four door Dacia Logan, Peugeot 207, or similar cars, provide metered cab service in the central metropolitan areas.

Casa-Voyageurs is the main intercity station, from which trains run south to Marrakech or El Jadida and north to Mohammedia and Rabat, and then on either to Tangier or Meknes, Fes, Taza and Oujda/Nador.