Essaouira, Morocco Named Among World’s Top 25 Small Towns for Living

Essaouira ranks 23rd in the ranking of the 25 best small towns in the world to live in, established by The Forecast - the special issue of Monocle magazine that announces the main global trends for the coming year. Beautiful and captivating, this port and tourist city located on the Atlantic coast contains a particular and original architectural and urban heritage. Since 2001, the medina of Essaouira has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Naha (Japan) tops the top 25 of the best small towns in the world to live in. It is followed by Santander, the capital of Cantabria, a province on the north coast of Spain that offers an environment conducive to young professionals, praises the cultural atmosphere of the city and notes the national and international connections of the airport, as well as the proximity to France and the ferry that connects it twice a week to Portsmouth. Petrópolis, a Brazilian city located two hours by car from Rio de Janeiro, takes third place.

Then come Newcastle (Australia), Eindhoven, Basel, Victoria (Canada), Keelung (Taiwan), Dunedin (New Zealand), Toulon (France), Patras (Greece), Salzburg, Elsinore (Denmark), Girona, Coimbra, Lugano, Brescia, Augsburg and Luxembourg. Santa Cruz (California), Pula (Croatia), Charleston, Essaouira (Morocco), Krosno (Poland) and San Miguel de Allende, in Mexico, complete the podium.

To compile its ranking, The Forecast selected cities with less than 350,000 inhabitants that offer the best of a big city, while allowing a better quality of life with a close and pleasant environment. The publication also took into account the testimonies of former Olympic sailor Berta Betanzos, co-owner of the Tanndem gym, architect Jacobo Gomis, founder of the Somo Surf Center, or Carlos Zamora, partner of the Deluz restaurant group.