Morocco · Casablanca-Settat
Where to Stay in Settat, Casablanca-Settat
Settat is a Moroccan city on a plateau ringed by foothills, lying between Rabat and Marrakesh, and the capital of Settat Province.
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Where to stay in Settat
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Settat is a provincial capital before it is a destination, and the useful question is whether you are stopping for a night or giving a day to the old fabric. The Medina of Settat answers the second. Rooms in and around it put the Ismailiya Kasbah, with its statue of a steed at the centre of the city, inside a short walk, and the older streets are where the character of the place is concentrated rather than spread thin.
The newer part of town runs on different lines. Ground near the Loubet monument belongs to the modern city, and it is the practical base for anyone whose business is with the offices of Settat Province rather than with the medina. Drivers have a third option.
The Casablanca road carries most of the traffic through here, so a bed along it costs the least time in the morning, whether the run continues towards Marrakesh or back north through Berrechid. Distances inside the city are small. The medina side and the road side are far enough apart in character that the address matters more than the room, and either one is a short drive from the other.
About Settat
The plateau and the kasbah.
What is Settat known for?
Settat stands 370 m above sea level on ground the foothills enclose, which sets it apart from the coastal cities that the region is otherwise known by. Its medina holds the older fabric. The Medina of Settat, the Kasbah of Mzamza and the Ismailiya Kasbah with its statue of a steed at the centre of the city make up the local antiquities, and the Loubet monument stands with them on the register.
What are the main landmarks in Settat?
Three names are on the register, and one more the city keeps for itself. The Medina of Settat, the Kasbah of Mzamza and the Loubet monument are the recorded sites, while the Ismailiya Kasbah stands with them as the antiquity the town points to first. A statue of a steed marks the centre.
That figure is the fixed point of the old quarter, and the kasbah it belongs to is the oldest thing the city puts on show.
What is the history of Settat?
The kasbah is the oldest thing here. The Ismailiya Kasbah counts among the antiquities of Settat, and the statue of a steed at the centre of the city belongs with it, which makes the middle of the modern town also the middle of the old one. Settat's founding date is not on record.
What the register does hold is a medina, two kasbahs and a monument, and that combination describes an inland town with an old core and a later civic layer laid over the top of it. Position on the plateau explains the rest. A city 370 m up, ringed by foothills and placed on the roads between Rabat and Marrakesh, is well set to serve the country around it, and Settat has done exactly that as the capital of Settat Province and the largest city within it.
The Loubet monument belongs to the later layer. It stands apart from the medina and the Kasbah of Mzamza in age as much as in style, marking a stage of the town's growth that the old quarter does not account for. سطات is the name in Arabic. Casablanca-Settat, the region carrying the city's own name in its second half, is the administrative frame around the province.
Where is Settat?
Settat occupies a plateau 370 m above sea level, with foothills standing around it on every side, which is a different kind of ground from the coastal belt of Casablanca-Settat. Casablanca is 83.9 km off by road. Ben Ahmed lies to the south and Berrechid to the north, and the long run between Rabat and Marrakesh passes through the city on its way.
What is the climate of Settat?
The plateau does the work here. Settat stands 370 m up on ground that the foothills enclose, and elevation of that order takes some of the edge off the heat that the lower country towards Casablanca carries through the summer. Nights arrive cooler than on the coast.
Those same hills keep sea air from reaching this far inland, so the swing between afternoon and night is wider here than it is down at Berrechid.
How do you get to Settat?
Roads bring almost everyone. Casablanca is 83.9 km off, roughly an hour by car, which makes Settat an easy run from the coast and a natural halt on the longer haul between Rabat and Marrakesh. Berrechid comes 34 km before it from the north.
Ben Ahmed lies 40 km out the other way, and Arabic carries the practical business of arranging any of it.
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Updated August 2026