Tangier, city, Morocco. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia Encyclopedia World Factbook Columbia Gazetteer American Heritage Coll. The city has a busy port and building, fishing, and textiles industries.
Tourism is also important.
The walled Moorish town adjoins a European suburb. Tangier was probably founded by the Phoenicians. The English abandoned the city to the Moroccans in 1684. By the mid-19th cent. When the rest of the country was divided between Spanish and French protectorates in 1912, the status of Tangier remained vague.