43 Fun Facts About Mauritania

The 2021 film The Mauritanian tells of Mohamedou Ould Slahi's 14 years without charge in which prison?

Guantanamo Bay held Slahi from 2002 to 2016; the film draws on Guantánamo Diary, the memoir he wrote there in English he had largely learned in the camp, which US officials heavily redacted.

Mauritania's only coastline, some 750 km long, faces which body of water?

The Atlantic washes Mauritania's roughly 750 km coast; its waters are among the world's richest fishing grounds, though foreign fleets have overfished them.

Mauritania's official name styles the country as what kind of state?

Islamic Republic of Mauritania has been the official name since 1958, two years before independence and two decades before Iran took the same title; Islam is the state religion.

What is the official language of Mauritania?

Arabic is Mauritania's sole official language; French, once official too, lost that status but is still widely used in business, schooling and administration.

What is the name of the local dialect spoken by most Mauritanians?

Hassaniya takes its name from the Beni Hassan, Bedouin tribes who spread over the region from the 15th century; their speech replaced the Berber languages once used there, absorbing Berber words along the way.

Ancient Mauretania, the Berber kingdom that gave Mauritania its name, lay in which region?

The Mediterranean coast of North Africa was ancient Mauretania; colonial officials revived the name in 1899 for a territory that does not overlap it at all, far to the south.

Which 11th-century Berber movement rose from Mauritania's deserts to build an empire reaching Spain?

The Almoravids, Sanhaja Berbers from the Sahara, founded Marrakesh as their capital and ruled Muslim Spain by the 1090s.

Mauritania's Imraguen fishermen traditionally caught mullet with the help of which wild animals?

Dolphins drove the mullet shoals towards the shore and into the Imraguen's nets; the Imraguen fish by traditional methods from their villages inside the Banc d'Arguin park.

Mauritania was colonised in the early 20th century as part of which colonial federation?

French West Africa absorbed Mauritania as a full colony in 1920; Xavier Coppolani, who began the conquest in 1901, had been killed in 1905 while preparing to march on the Adrar.

Which country refused to recognise Mauritania's independence until 1969?

Morocco claimed Mauritania as part of a 'Greater Morocco' and recognised the new state only in 1969, nine years after independence.

Who was Mauritania's first president, ousted in a bloodless coup in 1978?

Moktar Ould Daddah, president from independence, was deposed in a bloodless coup in July 1978 after a costly desert war drained the treasury.

Mauritania annexed part of which territory in the mid-1970s, then withdrew in 1979?

Western Sahara's southern third, renamed Tiris al-Gharbiyya, was Mauritania's share of the former Spanish colony; Polisario raids made the war so costly that it brought down the first president, and the claim was dropped in 1979.

Which colonel ruled Mauritania for over 20 years until a coup in August 2005?

Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, in power since 1984, was overthrown in August 2005 while attending the funeral of Saudi King Fahd.

In 1999 Mauritania opened full diplomatic relations with which country, only to sever them in 2010?

Israel: Mauritania became only the third Arab League member to recognise it, then froze ties over the Gaza war in 2009 and cut them completely in 2010.

Mauritania helped found which regional bloc in 1975, then withdrew from it in 2000?

ECOWAS, the West African economic community, lost a founding member when Mauritania pulled out in 2000; in 2017 the country signed an agreement to return as an associate member.

Which general led the 2008 coup and then won presidential elections in 2009 and 2014?

Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz seized power in August 2008, won the 2009 and 2014 presidential votes, and was jailed for illicit enrichment in December 2023.

The 2019 election of President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani marked which first for Mauritania?

A handover between elected leaders had never happened since independence in 1960: coups toppled rulers in 1978, 1984, 2005 and 2008 before an elected president stepped down at his term limit for an elected successor.

What did Mauritania abolish in 1981 but make a crime only in 2007?

Slavery was abolished by presidential decree in 1981, making Mauritania the last country on Earth to do so, but no law enforced the ban until owning slaves became a crime in 2007.

Which two groups, also known as the Black Moors and White Moors, form about 70% of Mauritanians?

Haratin and Bidhan, the Black and White Moors, make up roughly 40% and 30% of Mauritanians; though the smaller group, the Bidhan have long been the socially dominant one.

Mauritania expelled tens of thousands of its black citizens during a 1989 conflict with which neighbour?

The 1989 Mauritania-Senegal conflict began with a grazing dispute at Diawara on the river border; tens of thousands of black Mauritanians were deported to Senegal.

Mauritania's Cap Blanc peninsula shelters the largest surviving colony of which endangered sea mammal?

Monk seals, thought to be the world's rarest seals, keep their largest remaining colony at Cap Blanc; two-thirds of it died within two months in 1997, but numbers have slowly recovered since.

Mauritania's Richat Structure, a huge ring formation visible from orbit, is nicknamed what?

The Eye of the Sahara spans about 40 km and was first taken for an impact crater; geologists now read the Richat Structure as a deeply eroded dome of uplifted rock.

Which metal has been mined at Mauritania's vast Tasiast open pit since 2007?

Gold: Canada's Kinross bought the Tasiast mine in 2010, three years after digging began, in a deal worth about $7 billion, and has expanded the desert operation twice since.

Which mineral from the Zouérat mines has been a mainstay of Mauritania's exports since the 1960s?

Iron ore from the mines around Zouérat has been railed to the coast since 1963; in 1974 the state nationalised the mines, until then run by a company owned by European steel and mining interests.

The Mauritania Railway links the mines at Zouérat with which port?

Nouadhibou is the port at the end of the 704 km single-track line; French engineers even bored a 2 km tunnel through granite at Choum just to keep the rails off Spanish colonial soil.

Where do many passengers ride on Mauritania's desert freight trains?

In the open ore wagons: the trains, among the longest and heaviest in the world, haul about 200 hoppers from the Zouérat mines, and locals and adventurous tourists simply climb on top of the load.

Mauritania's Banc d'Arguin National Park is best known for hosting what?

Millions of migratory waders winter on the park's vast mudflats: over two million birds fly in each year from northern Europe, Siberia and Greenland.

What was added to Mauritania's flag in 2017?

Two red stripes, top and bottom, were added after an August 2017 referendum; they honour the blood shed defending the country.

What colour is the field of the Mauritanian flag?

The Mauritanian flag has a green field, the colour of Islam, bearing a gold crescent and star.

Mauritania's iggawen, a hereditary caste of praise-singers, are the local form of what?

Griots is the name such bards go by elsewhere in West Africa; though they sang the praises of warriors and patrons, Mauritania's iggawen themselves ranked as a low caste in Moorish society.

The ardin, a harp-like Mauritanian instrument, is traditionally played by whom?

Women alone traditionally play the ardin, a harp built on a calabash gourd, while the men of the same musician families play the tidinit, a four-stringed lute.

Mauritania's three-glass atay ritual is brewed with which kind of tea?

Green tea, usually the gunpowder kind, is brewed with mint and plenty of sugar; a proverb of the region likens the three glasses to life, love and death.

The Mauritanian practice of leblouh involves what?

Force-feeding girls to make them plump, known as leblouh or gavage, dates from nomadic times, when a heavy wife showed off her husband's wealth.

Which 1997 science-fiction film was partly shot in Mauritania?

The Fifth Element's opening scenes, set in Egypt in 1914, were shot in the Mauritanian desert; Sissako's Oscar-nominated Timbuktu was also filmed there.

Mauritania's footballers reached which tournament for the first time in 2019?

Africa Cup of Nations: a 2–1 win over Botswana in November 2018 sent Mauritania to its first finals, and it went on to qualify for the next two editions as well.

Saint-Exupéry's 1920s flights down Mauritania's coast inspired which of his books, his first novel?

Southern Mail follows an airmail pilot who vanishes in the desert; Saint-Exupéry knew the route as a pilot and as chief of the lonely Cape Juby airfield, where he had to keep the peace with hostile desert tribes.

What is the currency of Mauritania?

The ouguiya, introduced in 1973 to replace the CFA franc, is divided into five khoums, making it one of only two non-decimal currencies in the world.

Which country borders Mauritania to the northeast?

Algeria touches only Mauritania's north-eastern corner, along a ruler-straight desert border of about 460 km; the first official crossing between the two was announced only in 2018.

Along with Pulaar and Soninke, which language is recognised as a national language of Mauritania?

Wolof joins Pulaar and Soninke as Mauritania's recognised national languages; though the main language of the neighbour across the southern river, here it is spoken by only a small minority.

When construction of Nouakchott began in 1958, the new capital was designed to house how many people?

15,000 was the plan; droughts from the 1970s drove nomads and villagers to the capital in their hundreds of thousands, and Nouakchott now holds well over a million people.

Chinguetti, a World Heritage caravan town in Mauritania, is best known for which treasure?

Old manuscripts fill five family libraries in Chinguetti, Quranic and scientific texts dating from the late Middle Ages, in a town that advancing dunes are slowly burying; UNESCO listed it in 1996.

The square minaret of Chinguetti's Friday Mosque is capped with five finials made from what?

Ostrich eggs crown the square minaret of the dry-stone mosque; for centuries Chinguetti was a principal gathering place for pilgrims of the Maghreb setting out for Mecca.

The 'Road of Hope' runs some 1,100 km east from Nouakchott to Néma, near the border with which country?

Mali lies just beyond Néma, the last town on the Road of Hope; the paved highway is Mauritania's main land link with its eastern neighbour, crossing the whole south of the country.