MAPS IN THE NEWS:

A months-long civil protest, focused primarily in the mountainous region of northern Morocco known as the Rif, has gone all but unnoticed in the U.S. Protesters in Rif are objecting to police brutality, but this is just the latest chapter in Rif's estrangement from the rest of Morocco. Not only is the region mountainous, it is historically Berber, not Arab, and was a Spanish, not French, colony prior to independence in 1956, putting it at a geographic, linguistic, ethnic, and economic disadvantage when the country was re-unified. Even though Rif has a relatively small population, it has produced most of the Moroccan immigrants to Western Europe. This map shows the former colony of Spanish Morocco and the independent city of Tangier with, outlined in red, the once-aspirational Republic of Rif. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Rep%C3%BAblica_del_Rif.svg/2000px-Rep%C3%BAblica_del_Rif.svg.png