Morocco

Morocco occupies a unique position at the crossroads of Europe and Africa, between the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the gateway to the Sahara. Shaped by Amazigh, Arab and Andalusian civilizations, the country is renowned for both its rich cultural heritage and its remarkable diversity of landscapes. From the snow-capped High Atlas Mountains to fertile valleys, historic medinas and the vast expanses of the desert, each region has its own distinct identity.

The photographs in this category were mainly taken in southeastern Morocco, around Merzouga and the Erg Chebbi dunes, where the Sahara creates some of the country’s most spectacular scenery. These desert landscapes are also home to a surprisingly rich and discreet wildlife, perfectly adapted to one of the harshest environments on Earth. Among its most emblematic inhabitants is the fennec (*Vulpes zerda*), the world’s smallest wild canid, whose oversized ears are one of the desert’s most remarkable evolutionary adaptations. At dawn and again in the fading light of evening, the dunes become the stage for a hidden world, where tracks imprinted in the sand reveal the passage of their inhabitants long before the animals themselves come into view.