Tétouan or Tetuán [key], city (1994 pop. 277,516), N Morocco. The city has some light industry and is an export point for livestock and agricultural products. Its old casbah and mosques are tourist attractions. Tétouan was founded in the 14th cent. on the site of an earlier town at the foot of a high hill a short distance from the Mediterranean Sea. Castilians destroyed it c.1400 because it was a base for pirates. Muslim refugees from Spain refounded (1492) the city, and its flourishing handicrafts owe much to them. Tétouan was captured by the Spanish in 1860 and was reoccupied by them in 1913. It was the capital of the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco from 1912 to 1956.
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