This article is about the demographic features of the population of Morocco, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Most Moroccans are Sunni Muslims, mainly of Arab-Berber, Arabized Berber or Berber stock. Morocco was inhabited by Berbers since at least 5000 years ago. The Arabs conquered the territory that would become Morocco in the 7th and 11th centuries, at the time under the rule of various late Byzantine Roman princips and indigenous Berber and Romano-Berber principalities, such as the one of Julian, count of Ceuta, laying the foundation for the emergence of the Morish culture. A small minority of the population is identified as Haratin and Gnaoua, dark-skinned sedentary agriculturalists of the southern oases that speak either Berber or Arabic. Morocco's Jewish minority has decreased significantly and today numbers about 5,000. Most of the 100,000 foreign residents are French or Spanish.
Recent studies make clear no significant genetic differences exist between Arabic and non-Arabic speaking populations, highlighting that in common with most of the Arab World, Arabization was mainly via acculturation of indigenous populations over time and intermarriage between Arabs and Berbers. According to the European Journal of Human Genetics, Moroccans from North-Western Africa are genetically closer to Iberians and other South Europeans than to Middle Easterners and Sub-Saharan Africans.
