Changelog

Our research page carried a yearly rainfall figure of about 1,082 mm and described the town as being in drought since 2018. Neither held up when we checked properly. Five published estimates for Chefchaouen run between about 700 and 950 mm, and the year-by-year record shows one extremely dry year rather than eight — 2021-22 was the driest in thirty, but three of the years since sat at or above the middle, and the town's own dam filled to 100% in January 2026. Both lines have been rewritten, with a note saying what changed and why.

How much rain has fallen since the water year began on 1 September, drawn inside the range this place has actually seen since 1990 — because a normal year here is not one number, it is anything from about 490 mm to about 1,660 mm. The page gives you the figures and the spread and leaves the conclusion to you.

Almost everything visitors spend here is spent in a few hundred metres between Bab El Ain and Ras El Maa. This is an open list of the makers, the family-run kitchens, the guesthouses and the guides worth walking to, added and voted on by the people who have been. We tried twice to publish a directory of the town's cooperatives and could not verify enough of them from outside Morocco to be honest about it; this is the version that does not have to pretend.

NASA's satellites flag heat they see on the ground near town, updated after each pass. A detection is not a confirmed fire — the page explains what it can and can't tell you, alongside the official channels (ANEF, the 150 emergency line) that matter when it's serious.

When It's Quiet shows the medina's usual rhythm — dawn is calmest, the day-trip buses fill the Bab El Ain to Ras El Maa corridor roughly 10am to 5pm, and the town empties again after five. It also maps the busy months, so you can plan a visit (or a quiet errand) around the crowd. A typical pattern, not a live count.

The two walks from the Akchour trailhead — God's Bridge and the Grand Cascade — with grand-taxi logistics from town, how much water to expect by season, and the carry-it-out rule the gorge depends on.

Today's air over the town in plain words — and, on an east wind, whether the haze is Saharan dust or smoke. Dust shows up as coarse particles (PM10); smoke shows up as fine ones (PM2.5), so the tool can tell them apart. Pinned to the top of the town page.

Three tools to start: self-guided walks timed around the tour buses and built on the etiquette residents ask for, common questions covering arrival without the scams and the crowd clock, and verified contacts for emergencies, the hospital and ONEE.

Nine docs on the town beyond the blue walls: where day-tripper crowds actually concentrate (and when), what residents say about photography in doorways and motorbikes in the alleys, seven years of drought, and the August 2025 Derdara fire. The requested walking-route tool looks workable if it routes through consenting businesses rather than residential lanes.