Ahfir (, ) is a town in

Berkane Province Berkane Province (Berber: Aberkan, ⴱⴻⵔⴽⴰⵏ, Arabic: بَركان) is located in northeastern Morocco in the area of Aït Iznasen. It is bounded by the Mediterranean to its north, the Kiss Oued (Moroccan-Algerian border) and Oujda Prefe ...

Oriental The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

, adjacent the

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

with

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. According to the 2004 census, it has a population of 19,482. The name Ahfir refers to the stone quarry which was exploited in this village founded by Hubert Lyautey at the time of the French protectorate. This village, which is inhabited by Beni Iznassen, was the gateway to the French invasion by Lyautey in 1907 leading to the imposition of the French protectorate from 1912 until 1956. The name Ahfir means "Hole" in Berberized Arabic and would refer either to the great war trenches that were dug in this territory located near the Moroccan-Algerian border before the construction of the city by

Hubert Lyautey Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey (17 November 1854 – 27 July 1934) was a French Army general and colonial administrator. After serving in Indochina and Madagascar, he became the first French Resident-General in Morocco from 1912 to 1925. Early in ...

, or to the

stone quarry In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's o ...

that was exploited in this village at the time of the French protectorate (Martimprey-du-Kiss). The city is located on the territory of the Beni Khaled tribe, part of the Iznassen tribe.

References

Populated places in Berkane Province Municipalities of Morocco {{OrientalMA-geo-stub