Casablanca was founded by the Portuguese as Casa Branca. It was never a very important town until the French came to Morocco in the beginning of the 20-th century. They started to develop the axis Rabat (their capital) - Casablanca at high speed, which gave Casa its position as the economic powerhouse of Morocco. The old cities of Fes and Marrakesh started slowly to lose their positions, and many of the merchant families understood that the real money was to be made on the coast. Their move to Casablanca speeded up the process.

Casa played an important role in World War II -not the one depicted in the motion picture Casablanca- when in 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt met in one of its suburbs Anfa for the Allied Leader's summit.