35°53N 14°25E, pop (2000e) 14 000. Town in SWC Malta, 10 km/6 mi SW of Valletta; St Paul lived in a cave here during his 3-month stay on the island after shipwreck, AD 60; Roman villa and museum of Roman antiquities, St Paul's Grotto, Verdala Castle, St Agatha and St Paul's Catacombs.
Rabat (Arabic الرباط, transliterated ar-Rabāṭ or ar-Ribāṭ), population 1.2 million (2005 estimate), is the capital of the Kingdom of Morocco.
The city is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the river Bou Regreg. On the facing shore of the river lies Salé, Rabat's bedroom community. Rabat is located at 34°1'60" North, 6°49'60" West (34.0333, -6.8333). however, Rabat and Salé still maintain relatively important textile, food processing and construction industries;
In addition, tourism and the presence of all foreign embassies in Morocco serve to make Rabat the second most important city in the country after the larger and more economically significant Casablanca.
History
Rabat's history began with a settlement, known as Chellah on the banks of the Oued Bou Regreg in the third century BC. In 1146, the Almohad ruler Abd al-Mu'min turned Rabat's ribat into a full scale fortress to use as a launching point for attacks on Spain.
Yaqub al-Mansur (known as Moulay Yacoub in Morocco), another Almohad Caliph, moved the capital of his empire to Rabat. He built Rabat's city walls and began construction on what would have been the world's largest mosque. In the 13th century, much of Rabat's economic power shifted to Fez. In 1515 a Moorish explorer, El Wassan, reported that Rabat had declined so much that only 100 inhabited houses remained. An influx of Moriscos, who had been expelled from Spain, in the early 17th century helped boost Rabat's growth.
Rabat and neighboring Salé united to form the Republic of Bou Regreg in 1627. Even after the republic's collapse, pirates continued to use the port of Rabat, which led to the shelling of the city by Austria in 1829 after an Austrian ship had been lost to a pirate attack. The French administrator of Morocco, General Hubert Lyautey, decided to relocate the country's capital from Fez to Rabat. Sultan Moulay Youssef followed the decision of the French and moved his residence to Rabat. Lyautey hired Henri Prost who designed the Ville Nouvelle (Rabat's modern quarter) as an administrative sector. When Morocco achieved independence in 1956, Mohammed V, the then King of Morocco, chose to have the capital remain at Rabat. Hassan Tower Chellah necropolis
Kasbah Oudayas
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