Safi

Safi or Saffi (both: sä'fē), city (1994 pop. 262,276), W central Morocco, on the Atlantic Ocean. It is a center of the Moroccan fishing and canning industries. Phosphates are exported. Safi was a Portuguese base in the early 16th cent.; it then became (until 1660) the chief port, being close to the capital, Marrakech, of the Saadian dynasty. In World War II, Allied forces landed there on Nov. 8, 1942.