The Hassan II Mosque of Casablanca

December 21^st, 2025 

First it was Tangier, then Rabat, so I might as well go for the three-day trifecta of major Moroccan cities with a quick visit to the most populated city of the country, Casablanca (about 3.5 million people).  I planned on essentially a fly-by of the major metropolis as I had read that it was more of a sprawling, modern city rather than having traditional tourist appeal.

On my way from Rabat to Casablanca, I crossed over the Mohammed VI Bridge, named after the current king.

I saw this big white patch in a field...and it turned out to be hundreds of white storks.  This is a zoomed in photo that I took while driving so I missed some of this "muster of storks" (I had to look that up).

And this one is already zoomed in, but you'll have to open it up and zoom in more, but there are hundreds and hundreds of storks flying in this photo, especially near the hill on the right.  That's known as a "phalanx of storks" when they are flying.

Driving into Casablanca.  They have the rails for light rail transit, but I never saw one.  However, it was Sunday so that might be why.

I was surprised to end up in a 1-2 kilometre long tunnel under the city as I neared the coast.

The main attraction in Casablanca is the stunning, and massive Hassan II Mosque on the waterfront.  Completed in 1993, it was built under the guidance of King Hassan II, who was the son of Mohammed V whose mausoleum I just visited in Rabat yesterday and the current king is Mohammed VI who has that modern skyscraper in Rabat named after him.  Clear on all that?!?

What a prime parking spot for Octi!

It is an impressive building.

Researching online, I couldn't find any information whether it was open on Sundays.  I know that it's not a holy day for Muslims (Friday is), but online Sunday was always missing on listings of the opening hours.  There were gates up with a guards at the two entrances on this side of the mosque, but then I spoke to one guard and it was indeed open, the entrance was just the a 3 minute walk around a building on the road opposite the mosque.

The minaret is 210 meters tall, making it world's second tallest (the tallest one is in Algeria at 264 meters which was just built in 2019, taking the title away from the Hassan II minaret).

One of a number of entrances.

It is hard to get perspective on how big this place is...but can you see the human figure to the right of the double column in the middle?

There were half a dozen signs with labels for different languages for the guided tours (you can see one on the left and one in the middle by the columns).  I hung out by the "English" one for 4-5 minutes, as did a number of other tourists, and then gave up and started walking around.  Another 5 minutes later, I could see the tour start up.  I wandered by and listened for a minute or so, then decided that I could forego the tour.

I did hear the tour guide mention that some of the doors weigh 30 tons!

This upper level is where the women pray.

Looking down the length of the mosque.

Work commenced on July 12, 1986, and was conducted over a seven-year period. Construction was scheduled to be completed in 1989 ready for Hassan II's 60th birthday. During the most intense period of construction, 1400 men worked during the day and another 1100 during the night. 10,000 artists and craftsmen participated in building and beautifying the mosque.  However, the building was not completed on schedule, which delayed inauguration.

A 360 view in the mosque.

Can you believe that 25,000 worshippers can fit in this place and another 80,000 on the grounds outside!!!

It was estimated to have cost around 585 million Euros to build!

Believe it or not, but there is a laser at the top of the tower which is pointed towards Mecca and supposedly the beam reaches out about 30 kilometres into the distance!

Some serious doors...oh yeah, the tour guide said that they were made of tungsten.

I had some "fun" trying to get this photo.  There was no one nearby to ask to take the pic so I was leaning my phone in a crack in the stone flooring and it did take me about five attempts.  I got a better one with my arms up higher, but I cut off the minaret...so this one will have to do.

A lighthouse to the south of the mosque.

Hard to see here, but that's one of many roundabouts in the cities of Morocco that have the flags of all teams participating in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations football tournament that is happening in Morocco.

King Hassan II died in 1999 so at least he saw the completion of his mosque.  He was an interesting man who survived not one, but two coups in 1971 and 1972.  The latter one was quite interesting as  four Royal Moroccan Air Force pilots, flying Northrop F-5 fighter jets, attacked the Boeing 727 he was flying back in from Spain.  The planes shot holes through the fuselage, killing some passengers.  Allegedly, the King himself grabbed the radio and told the rebel pilots, "Stop firing! The tyrant is dead!"  Believing their mission to have been accomplished, the rebel pilots broke off their attack.  That's pretty wild!

After visiting the mosque, it was time to get out of the big city as I wanted to visit a small seaside town called Azemmour before making my way to a campsite.  But I'll post Azemmour in another entry as there was a lot to see there (don't worry, it will be mainly photos and very little of my verbosity!).