Volubilis is a Mauretanian-Roman archaeological site of north-central Morocco, set on a low plateau above the Khoumane river twenty kilometres north of Meknes. The Berber name Walili, conventionally derived from a word for the oleander that flourishes along the riverbanks, precedes the Roman Volubilis.
The pre-Roman city was a regional capital of the Mauretanian kingdom under Juba II and his son Ptolemy, the last Berber king of the western Maghreb, assassinated in 40 CE on the orders of Caligula. Roman annexation as Volubilis in the early Imperial period inaugurated three centuries of Latin urbanism on the site: a forum, basilica, capitol, triumphal arch, and a complete grid of paved streets, public baths, and aristocratic houses with mosaic floors that survive in remarkable condition.
The Roman administration withdrew at the end of the third century but the city was not abandoned. A Christian-then-Muslim Berber population continued at the site through the Vandal, Byzantine-suzerain, and early Islamic periods. Idris I, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty, took refuge at Walili after fleeing the Abbasid east in 786 and was sheltered by the local Awraba Berber chief Ishaq ibn Muhammad before founding Fez. His tomb at the nearby town of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun marks one of the principal pilgrimage centres of Morocco.
Volubilis was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1997 and is the principal Roman-era site in Morocco. Recent archaeological work has emphasised the long Berber continuity at the site, beyond the Roman façade through which it was first interpreted.