Three Moroccan Cities Feature Among Africa’s 15 Most Expensive Cities

Morocco’s Marrakech, Tangier, and Casablanca all appear on a list of Africa’s 15 most expensive cities in the 10th, 13th, and 14th place respectively.

Rabat – Morocco’s Marrakech, Tangier, and Casablanca all appear on a list of Africa’s 15 most expensive cities in the 10th, 13th, and 14th place respectively.

With three cities on the ranking, Morocco joins South Africa as the country with the highest number of cities on the list. Both countries have three cities in the ranking.

Put together by data platform Statista, the ranking comprises a number of metrics relating to the price of consumer goods, including restaurants, utility transportation, and groceries.

The ranking does not comprise data on the cost of accommodation such as rent or mortgage.

Dubbed “the Cost of Living Index,” the metric assesses the cost of everyday expenses benchmarked against the cost in New York City, the world’s second most expensive city according to some estimates.

Marrakech, Morocco’s most expensive city within the ranking, scored 51% on the index. To put the number in perspective, the score indicates that the cost of living in Morocco’s red city is, on average, 49% cheaper than in New York.

Tangier and Casablanca both scored 36%, making them 12% less expensive than Marrakech, and 63% less expensive than the US financial capital.

Regarding accommodation costs in the three Moroccan cities, data from Numero, another data platform, indicate that rent in Marrakech was almost 90% less expensive compared to NY in 2021.

Casablanca and Tangier are 86% and 85% less expensive respectively.

In addition to benchmarking the living cost in the three Moroccan cities, the report also comprises data on the average purchasing power in the same cities.

Data suggests that the average local purchasing power in Morocco’s Marrakech and Casablanca is 70% less than that of the average purchasing power in New York, while in Tangier it is 73% below the study average.