Morocco P-57b 10 Dirhams 1985—Hassan II—Andalusian Gardens

Banknote Characteristics

• Varieties:
  • P-57a (1390/1970, signatures: Mohamed El Mdaghri / Moulay Hassan Ben Mehdi El Alaovi); 
  • P-57b (1405/1985, signatures: Hassan Lukash / Ahmed Ben Nani). You will receive this note
• Color: Obverse — multicolor with dominant green and brown tones; Reverse — orange dominant
• Front: Portrait of King Hassan II; view of the Andalusian Gardens (Jardin Andalou des Oudayas), Kasbah of Oudaïa Medina, the Tower of the Pavilion of Moulay Ismail, and the Museum of Oudayas (now Museum of Moroccan Arts), Rabat
• Back: Orange processing and packing
• Watermark: King Hassan II
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 145 × 73 mm
• Issuing entity: Bank of Morocco (Banque du Maroc)
• Printer: De La Rue (TDLR), London (1821–date)
• Demonetized: 31 December 2011
• Signatures: See Varieties above
• Currency: Moroccan dirham (1960–date)

About Morocco

• Capital: Rabat (city pop. ~600,000; metro ~1.8 million)
• Population: ~38 million (UN 2024) — similar to Algeria or California
• Area: 446,550 km² (172,414 mi²) — excluding the disputed Western Sahara territory
• GDP per capita at PPP: ~$11,000 USD (IMF 2024) — ranks ~130th out of 193 globally
• Main exports: Phosphates and fertilizers, automobiles, electronics, textiles, citrus and vegetables, seafood
• Borders: Algeria (east), Mauritania (south, via Western Sahara), Spain (north, via Ceuta and Melilla enclaves); Atlantic Ocean (west), Mediterranean Sea (north)
• Official languages: Arabic (Modern Standard; ~100% literacy target); Tamazight (Berber) (co-official since 2011)
• Spoken languages: Darija (Moroccan Arabic) (~90%); Tarifit, Tachelhit, Central Atlas Tamazight (Berber varieties, collectively ~25–30%); French (widely used in business, government, and education)
• Sovereignty:
  • Phoenician and Carthaginian settlements (1st millennium BC)
  • Kingdom of Mauretania / Roman province (3rd century BC–5th century AD)
  • Arab conquest and Umayyad rule (7th–8th century AD) — Islam and Arabic introduced
  • Idrisid dynasty (788–974) — first Islamic Moroccan state; founded Fez
  • Successive Berber dynasties: Almoravids, Almohads, Marinids, Wattasids, Saadians (11th–17th centuries)
  • Alaouite dynasty (1666–date) — current ruling house
  • French and Spanish Protectorates (1912–1956)
  • Independence (1956); Kingdom under Mohammed V, then Hassan II (1961–1999) — this note issued during Hassan II's reign
  • Mohammed VI (1999–date)

Morocco Unfiltered

• Morocco holds over 70% of the world's known phosphate reserves — a resource more strategically important than oil for global food production, since phosphate is irreplaceable in fertilizer.
• The University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, founded in 859 AD, is recognized by UNESCO and the Guinness World Records as the oldest continuously operating university in the world.
• During Hassan II's reign, Morocco conducted the Green March (1975) — 350,000 unarmed Moroccan civilians walked into Spanish-controlled Western Sahara in a coordinated mass annexation that Spain did not militarily resist.
• Morocco is one of only three countries to have both Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines, giving it outsized strategic importance at the entrance to the Mediterranean.
• The Kasbah of Oudaïa depicted on this note sits at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river in Rabat — its blue-and-white alleyways and Andalusian gardens were built by Moorish refugees expelled from Spain in 1609, who recreated the architecture of their lost homeland on Moroccan soil.