What's the difference between a riad and a dar?
Both are traditional Moroccan houses organised around a courtyard. A riad has a garden with a fountain; a dar has a simpler light well.
A riad (from the Arabic word for garden) is a traditional Moroccan house built around a central courtyard that contains a garden — typically fruit trees, a fountain, and ornamental planting. The rooms of the house open onto the courtyard through arched galleries; the courtyard is the social and thermal heart of the building.
A dar (Arabic for house) is the more modest cousin. It's organised around the same central-courtyard logic but with a smaller, simpler central space — often just a patio with a skylight or a wst ad-dar (courtyard with a light well), without the garden planting. Dars are typically smaller in overall footprint and more common than true riads in the medina.
In practice, the property market uses "riad" loosely. Any medina house with a courtyard is often listed as a riad, even when strictly it's a dar. For a buyer, the distinction matters less than what the property actually contains: square metreage, number of courtyards, light quality, structural condition. Look at the building, not the label.