Mauritania

Overview

Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, spans about 1.03 million km² in the western Sahara/Sahel — 90% of it desert — bordering Western Sahara, Algeria, Mali, Senegal and the Atlantic; its capital Nouakchott holds roughly a third of the ~5 million inhabitants. It is a member of the Arab League, with Arabic as official language and Sunni Islam as the state religion.

History

The territory was home to Berber and Bafour peoples; Arab-Berber Almoravid conquerors of the 11th century built an empire stretching to Iberia, and Maqil Arab tribes completed the arabisation of the region in the 17th-century Char Bouba war, leaving Hassaniya Arabic dominant. France progressively occupied the emirates from 1901 under Xavier Coppolani, subdued the Adrar emirate by 1912, and administered Mauritania within French West Africa, choosing the village of Nouakchott as the new capital at independence on 28 November 1960.

Moktar Ould Daddah ruled as one-party president until 1978, when the disastrous attempt to annex southern Western Sahara (withdrawn 1979 after Polisario defeats) triggered a coup. Military governments followed: Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya (1984–2005) survived through arabisation policies and shifting alliances; the 1989–91 Mauritania–Senegal border crisis saw pogroms and the expulsion of tens of thousands of Black Mauritanians. A 2005 coup led to the country's first genuinely democratic election in 2007, won by Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi — who was overthrown within a year by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (2008). Aziz won elections in 2009 and 2014 and handed over in 2019 to Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in the country's first peaceful transfer of power; Ghazouani was re-elected in 2024, while ex-president Aziz was jailed for corruption in 2023.

Later history and present status

The economy rests on iron ore, fishing, livestock, and offshore oil and gas discovered in the 2000s–2010s. Society divides between Bidhan (white Moors, ~30%), Haratin (former slave-descended Moors, ~40%), and Halpulaar, Soninke and Wolof groups (~30%). Mauritania was the last country to abolish slavery (criminalised only in 2007) and the practice persists despite repeated bans, anchoring the country's poor human-rights record.