Ouarzazate sits at 1,160 metres in the pre-Saharan south of Morocco, where the High Atlas mountains give way to the arid steppe and eventually to the Sahara. It is the main town and transport hub of the region — the departure point for the Draa Valley, the Dades and Todra gorges, and the great sand dunes near Merzouga. The Moroccan government developed it in the 1980s as a planned tourism centre, giving it wide boulevards and a regional airport, but the town itself is quieter and more relaxed than its outsized infrastructure suggests.
Ouarzazate’s most famous distinction is its film industry. Productions have used the surrounding desert and kasbahs since the 1960s: Lawrence of Arabia, Jesus of Nazareth, The Last Temptation of Christ, Gladiator, Alexander, The Mummy, and Game of Thrones were all partly filmed in the region. The Atlas Film Studios on the western edge of town are among the largest film production facilities in the world by area, and offer guided tours of their extraordinary standing sets — Egyptian temples, Roman forums, desert fortresses — when not in active production. A second facility, CLA Studios, handles overflow and is also occasionally open to visitors.
In town, the Kasbah Taourirt is the main historic monument: a great rammed-earth palace complex of the Glaoui clan, the powerful Berber family that controlled southern Morocco through the French protectorate period. The most visited sight in the region is Ait Benhaddou, a UNESCO World Heritage ksar 32 km northwest on the road to Marrakech — an astonishing cluster of towers and defensive walls in traditional southern Moroccan style. Further east, the Dades and Todra gorges cut deep into the Atlas foothills and are both accessible as full day trips.