Taza sits at the narrowest point of the corridor between the Rif mountains and the Middle Atlas — the Taza Gap — which made it the strategic key to Morocco's eastern approaches for over a thousand years. Whoever controlled Taza controlled the road from Fez to Tlemcen and, effectively, the whole northeast of the country. The Almohad caliphate used it as their first stronghold in Morocco in the 12th century, before any of the more famous imperial cities were consolidated.
The French arrival, first in Algeria and then in Morocco, shifted trade and power definitively westward and Taza lost its strategic importance. What remains is a genuine Moroccan market town without much tourist polish: the double city of Taza-Haut (the old medina on the rocky spur) and Taza-Bas (the French-era Ville Nouvelle below) is worth a day or overnight stop for travellers on the Fez–Oujda route.
The medina walls circuit is the most rewarding single activity: the views from Bab Er Rih, Bab Zitouna, and Tour Es-Sarragine take in both mountain ranges simultaneously. The Grande Mosquée, founded in 1135, is one of the oldest Almohad mosques in Morocco (not accessible to non-Muslims, but worth viewing from outside). For a day trip, the Friouato Caves and Djebel Tazzeka National Park to the south offer limestone cave formations and cedar forest with mountain views.