Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in the Maghreb region of West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. By land area Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and the 28th-largest in the world; 90% of its territory is in the Sahara desert. Most of its population of 5.4 million live in the temperate south of the country; roughly a third of the population is concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, on the Atlantic coast.
The country's name derives from Mauretania, the Latin name for a region, to the north, in the ancient Mediterranean Maghreb. Mauretania extended from central present-day northern Algeria to the Atlantic, in Morocco. Berbers occupied what is now Mauritania by the beginning of the 3rd century CE. Groups of Arab tribes migrated to this area in the late 7th century, bringing with them Islam, Arab culture, and the Arabic language. In the early 20th century, Mauritania was colonized by France as part of French West Africa. It achieved independence in 1960. The country has since experienced recurrent coups and periods of military dictatorship. The 2008 Mauritanian coup d'état was led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who won subsequent presidential elections in 2009 and 2014. He was succeeded by General Mohamed Ould Ghazouani following the 2019 elections, in what was considered the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence. Mauritania has a poor human rights record, particularly because of its perpetuation of slavery; the 2023 Global Slavery Index estimates there are about 149,000 slaves in the country (or 32 per 1,000 people).
Despite an abundance of natural resources, Mauritania remains poor; its economy is based primarily on agriculture and fishing. Mauritania is culturally and politically part of the Arab world as a member of the Arab League. Arabic is the official language, while Pulaar, Soninke and Wolof are recognized as national languages. The state religion is Islam, and almost all inhabitants are Sunni Muslims. Despite its prevailing Arab identity, Mauritanian society is multiethnic. The Haratin make up 40% of the population, while the Bidhan make up 30%. The remaining 30% consists of various sub-Saharan ethnic groups.
Etymology
Mauritania takes its name from the ancient Berber kingdom that flourished beginning in the third century BC and later became the Roman province of Mauretania, which flourished into the seventh century AD. The two territories do not overlap, though; historical Mauretania was considerably farther north than modern Mauritania, as it was spread out along the entire western half of the Mediterranean coast of Africa. The term "Mauretania", in turn, derives from the Greek and Roman exonym for the Berber peoples of the kingdom, the Mauri people. The word "Mauri" is also the root of the name for the Moors.
It was more commonly known to Arab geographers as Bilad Chinqit (Arabic: بلاد شنقيط), "the land of Chinguetti". The term "Mauritanie occidentale" was officially used in a ministerial circular in 1899; it is based on a proposal by Xavier Coppolani, a French military and colonial administrator, who was instrumental in the colonial occupation and creation of modern-day Mauritania. This term, employed by the French, gradually replaced other designations previously used for referring to the country.
History
Early history
The ancient tribes of Mauritania were the Niger-Congo, and Bafour peoples. The Bafour were among the first Saharan peoples to abandon their previously nomadic lifestyle and adopt a primarily agricultural one. In response to the gradual desertification of the Sahara, they eventually migrated southward. The Bafour peoples were displaced by the Berber people when that group arrived in the 3rd to 7th centuries. Many of the Berber tribes have claimed to have Yemeni (and sometimes other Arab) origins. Little evidence supports those claims; however, a 2000 DNA study of the Yemeni people suggested that some ancient connection might exist between the peoples.
The Umayyads were the first Arab Muslims to enter Mauritania. During the Islamic conquests, they made incursions into Mauritania and were established in the region by the end of the seventh century. Many Berber tribes in Mauritania fled the arrival of the Arabs to the Gao region in Mali.
Other peoples also migrated south past the Sahara and into West Africa. In the 11th century, several nomadic Berber confederations in the desert regions overlapping present-day Mauritania joined to form the Almoravid movement. They expanded north and south, spawning an important empire that stretched from the Sahara to the Iberian Peninsula in Europe. According to a disputed Arab tradition, the Almoravids traveled south and conquered the ancient and extensive Ghana Empire around 1076.
The history of writing in Mauritania dates back to the Almoravid period. Al-Ḥaḍramī served as qadi in Azougui in the late 11th century, and was known for his great skill in elegant writing and speaking. He wrote a book on good princely conduct (Kitāb al-Išāra ilā Adab al-Imāra), with the first chapter devoted to the importance of reading and learning. Manuscript copies of this book can still be found in libraries in Mauritania today, where the lack of local paper production and the infrequent use of parchment may explain the absence of other surviving written works before the 16th century.
From 1644 to 1674, the indigenous peoples of the area that is modern Mauritania made what became their final effort to repel the Maqil Arabs who were invading their territory. This effort, which was unsuccessful, is known as the Char Bouba War. The invaders were led by the Beni Hassan tribe. The descendants of the Beni Hassan warriors became the upper stratum of Moorish society. Hassaniya, a bedouin Arabic dialect named for the Beni Hassan, became the dominant language among the largely nomadic population.
Colonial history
Starting in the late 19th century, France laid claim to the territories of present-day Mauritania, from the Senegal River area northwards. In 1901, Xavier Coppolani took charge of the imperial mission. Through a combination of strategic alliances with Zawaya tribes and military pressure on the Hassane warrior nomads, he managed to extend French rule over the Mauritanian emirates. Beginning in 1903 and 1904, the French armies succeeded in occupying Trarza, Brakna, and Tagant. However the northern emirate of Adrar held out longer; the emirate was aided by the anticolonial rebellion (or jihad) of shaykh Maa al-Aynayn and by insurgents from Tagant and the other occupied regions. In 1904, France organized the territory of Mauritania, and it became part of French West Africa, first as a protectorate and later as a colony. In 1912, the French armies defeated Adrar, and incorporated it into the territory of Mauritania.
French rule brought legal prohibitions against slavery and an end to interclan warfare. During the colonial period 90% of the population remained nomadic. Gradually many individuals belonging to sedentary peoples, whose ancestors had been expelled centuries earlier, began to migrate into Mauritania. Until 1902, the capital of French West Africa was in modern-day Senegal. It was first established at Saint-Louis and later, from 1902 to 1960, in Dakar. When Senegal gained its independence that year, France chose Nouakchott as the site of the new capital of Mauritania. At the time, Nouakchott was little more than a fortified village (or ksar).
After Mauritanian independence, larger numbers of indigenous sub-Saharan African peoples (Haalpulaar, Soninke, and Wolof) immigrated, with most of them settling in the area north of the Senegal River. Many of these new arrivals had been educated in the French language and customs, and became clerks, soldiers, and administrators in the new state. At the same time, the French were militarily suppressing the most intransigent Hassane tribes in the north. French pressure on those tribes altered the existing balance of power, and new conflicts arose between the southern populations and the Moors.
The great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive devastation in Mauritania, exacerbating problems of poverty and conflict. The arabized dominant elites reacted to changing circumstances, and to Arab nationalist calls from abroad, by increasing pressure to arabize many aspects of Mauritanian life, such as law and the education system. This was also a reaction to the consequences of the French domination under the colonial rule. Various models for maintaining the country's cultural diversity have been suggested, but none have been successfully implemented.
This ethnic discord was evident during intercommunal violence that broke out in April 1989 (the "Mauritania–Senegal Border War"); the conflict has since subsided. Mauritania expelled some 70,000 sub-Saharan African Mauritanians in the late 1980s. Ethnic tensions and the sensitive issue of slavery – past and, in some areas, present – are still powerful themes in the country's political debate. A significant number from all groups seek a more diverse, pluralistic society.
Conflict with Western Sahara
The International Court of Justice concluded that in spite of some evidence of both Morocco's and Mauritania's legal ties prior to Spanish colonization, neither set of ties was sufficient to affect the application of the UN General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples to Western Sahara.
In 1976, Mauritania, along with Morocco, annexed the territory of Western Sahara. After several military losses to the Polisario–heavily armed and supported by Algeria, the regional power and rival to Morocco–Mauritania withdrew in 1979. Its claims were taken over by Morocco. Due to economic weakness, Mauritania has been a negligible player in the territorial dispute, with its official position being that it wishes for an expedient solution that is mutually agreeable to all parties.
While most of Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco, the UN still considers the Western Sahara a territory that needs to express its wishes with respect to statehood. A referendum, originally scheduled for 1992, is still supposed to be held at some point in the future, under UN auspices, to determine whether or not the indigenous Sahrawis wish to be independent, as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, or to be part of Morocco.
Ould Daddah era (1960–1978)
In 1960, Mauritania became an independent nation. In 1964, President Moktar Ould Daddah, originally installed by the French, formalized Mauritania as a one-party state with a new constitution, setting up an authoritarian presidential regime. Daddah's own Parti du Peuple Mauritanien became the ruling organization in a one-party system. The President justified this on the grounds that Mauritania was not ready for western style multiparty democracy. Under this one-party constitution, Daddah was re-elected in uncontested elections in 1976 and 1978.
Daddah was ousted in a bloodless coup on 10 July 1978. He had brought the country to near-collapse through the disastrous war to annex the southern part of Western Sahara; this potential annexation was framed as an attempt to create a "Greater Mauritania".
CMRN and CMSN military governments (1978–1984)
Mustafa Ould Salek's Military Committee for National Recovery proved incapable of either establishing a strong base of power or extracting the country from its destabilizing conflict with the Sahrawi resistance movement, the Polisario Front. It quickly fell, to be replaced by another military government, the Military Committee for National Salvation.
Colonel Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah soon emerged as its strongman. By giving up all claims to Western Sahara, he found peace with the Polisario and improved relations with its main backer, Algeria; however, relations with Morocco, the other party to the conflict, and its European ally France, deteriorated. Instability continued, and Haidallah's ambitious reform attempts foundered. His regime was plagued by attempted coups and intrigue within the military establishment. It became increasingly contested due to his harsh and uncompromising measures against opponents; many dissidents were jailed, and some executed.
Slavery in Mauritania still exists, despite being officially abolished three times: in 1905, 1981, and again in August 2007. Anti-slavery activists are persecuted, imprisoned and tortured.
In 1981, United States newspapers mistakenly reported that the Central Intelligence Agency planned a covert operation to overthrow the government of Mauritania as part of the U.S. Cold War strategy. Journalist Bob Woodward later wrote that the mistake was made by "White House aides unfamiliar with the world" who meant to leak news about an operation planned for Mauritius.
Ould Taya's rule (1984–2005)
In December 1984, Haidallah was deposed by Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, who, while retaining tight military control, relaxed the political climate. Ould Taya moderated Mauritania's previous pro-Algerian stance, and re-established ties with Morocco during the late 1980s. He deepened these ties during the late 1990s and early 2000s, as part of Mauritania's drive to attract support from Western states and Western-aligned Arab states. Its position on the Western Sahara conflict has been, since the 1980s, one of strict neutrality.
The Mauritania–Senegal Border War started as a result of a conflict in Diawara between Moorish Mauritanian herders and Senegalese farmers over grazing rights. On 9 April 1989, Mauritanian guards killed two Senegalese.