The region around the cities of Boujad and Beni Mellal is a landscape of hills and plains situated between the Middle Atlas and the Atlantic ocean mostly inhabited by Arabic groups and arabised Berbers.
The carpets of the area share similarities with the ones from the Middle Atlas in their structure and pile height, but designs do not seem to strictly follow the traditional rules of the Berber weaving culture. Even if the basic formal canon of diamond grids, checkerboard fields often reminds of design concepts known from the Middle Atlas, the overall character is often more playful. One can find motifs like stars, flowers or medallion shapes borrowed from urban carpets or free floating forms that cannot be decoded but are a unique pictorial vision of an individual weaver. The sometimes sharp colours are said to be preferred by the rural Arabic taste. The region seems to be a melting pot of small migrations that took place in the second half of the twentieth century. So the specific regional pile weaves do not have a far-reaching history in the traditional sense, but rather represent a relatively young cultural development. Nevertheless they carry a very distinctive character and the best examples may be regarded as charming works of art.
