My map is based mainly on three sets of previous maps:

(1) A shaded relief greyscale map of northern Morocco in the Web Mercator projection produced using SRTM data obtained from the Space Shuttle with radar technology. It was kindly provided to me by Tom Patterson of shadedrelief.com.

(2) A selection of 109 tiles of the 1:50,000 scale topographic “Carte du Maroc” published by the Institut Géographique National (Paris) and by the Division de la Carte (Rabat), mostly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They cover the former Spanish Protectorate of Morocco and the north end of the former French Protectorate. I first found this excellent map collection in a website maintained by Dr. Rachid Bissour of Sultan Moulay Slimane University at Beni Mellal. That website later stopped working, but these maps –as well as other topo maps of Morocco– can be obtained HERE.

(3) The 117 tiles of the 1:50,000 scale topographic “Mapa Provisional (del Norte de Marruecos)” published by the Spanish Army. They cover the former Spanish Protectorate of Morocco. I looked for the most recent version of each tile. A version from between 1956 and 1959 was available for almost every tile. As already suggested by the term “provisional”, these Spanish maps were plotted with less accuracy than the French/Moroccan topo maps, but they show the kabila borders, as well as richer detail in village, mountain and river names. The individual maps can be downloaded from HERE.  You need to enter in the “Búsqueda” box the name of one of the various regions of the Spanish zone of Morocco (Utauien, Yebala, Gomara, Ketama, Rif, or Kelaia). This search will give you many more maps than those in which you are interested; you will need to select the appropriate ones for download.

I also occasionally used information taken from the 14 tiles of the 1:100,000 scale “Mapa del Norte de Marruecos”, published by the Spanish Army between 1943 and 1947, which showed reasonable consistency with the “Mapa Provisional (del Norte de Marruecos)”. The 1918 1:100,000 scale “Mapa Militar” of the eastern war zone (5 tiles) is also surprisingly good considering its early date, while the corresponding map for the western war zone (1922/1924, 1 tile, 1:150,000 scale) is much less accurate, although still useful. The 1:100,000 scale “Mapa del Norte de Marruecos” and 1:150,000 scale “Mapa Militar” (western war zone) can be downloaded from the same website as the 1:50,000 scale Spanish Army maps by entering in the “Búsqueda” box the strings “Norte de Marruecos” and “Mapa Militar Marruecos”, respectively. Again, you will need to select the appropriate maps for download. The “Mapa Militar” (eastern war zone) can be downloaded from HERE; click on “Ver obra”.

Here is a summarized version of the basic process that I followed to prepare the map: I started by trimming the frame out of every one of the 109 French/Moroccan topo maps, leaving only the true map area. Then I used Adobe Illustrator to combine the individual tiles into a large mosaic. In this map mosaic, I marked the positions of the places of interest, and traced the rivers and the coastline. To correct for the differences in cartographical projection between the map mosaic and the shaded relief map, I also marked the locations of several hundred calibration landmarks (mainly hill and mountain peaks) in the two maps. Then I used Adobe Illustrator to construct a mesh consisting of the four corners of all the tiles of the mosaic map. By distorting this mesh, I made the calibration landmarks of the mosaic fit with their respective locations in the shaded relief map. I then applied the same distortions to the places of interest, the rivers, and the coastline, and finally I superimposed their positions on the shaded relief map. The Spanish Army topo maps were useful for adding the kabila borders, as well as points of interest that did not show up in the French/Moroccan topo maps.

The border between the Spanish and French zones presented a series of problems. At first, I assumed that the ragged bottom edge of the Spanish Army topo maps represented the border. However, I later realized that in most places it was merely the limit of the area surveyed by the Spanish Army. This border was ill-defined in the various treaties and agreements between the Spanish and French governments, and it also did not remain stationary, but generally crept northward in the course of the war. The Spanish and French governments often did not agree where the border was supposed to be. I found in Internet several Spanish maps that showed the border at various dates, but they were only rough and inaccurate sketches (“croquis”), usually drawn at small scales. (To see some of these maps, go HERE, and enter the string “trazado fronterizo” in the “Búsqueda” box.) The most detailed depiction of the border that I found in Internet was, surprisingly, in a map produced by the United States Army in 1953, and available HERE.  It’s the 7th map in that web page, “Cartes 1 / 250 000 (U.S. Army 1953)”. It was based on earlier Spanish and French maps. The border of my map generally follows this American map from 1953, and it should be considered a reasonable but definitely imperfect representation of the position(s) of the border during the war.