Portal:Mauritania

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Flag of Mauritania
Coat of Arms of Mauritania
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Mauritania (Arabic: موريتانيا‎‎ Mūrītāniyā), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest. It is named after the Roman province of Mauretania, even though the modern state covers a territory far to the southwest of the old province. The capital and largest city is Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast.

The civilian government of Mauritania was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d'état led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. On April 16, 2009, General Aziz resigned from the military to run for president in the July 19 elections, which he won. In Mauritania about 20% of the population live on less than US $1.25 per day.

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The Emirate of Trarza was a precolonial state in what is today southwest Mauritania, which has survived as a traditional confederation of semi-nomadic peoples to the present day. Its name is shared with the modern Region of Trarza. The population, a mixture of Berber tribes, were later conquered by Hassaniya Arabic speakers from the north. Europeans called these people Moors/Maures, and thus have titled this group the Trarza Moors.

Trarza, founded in the midst of the final wars between the local Berber Bedouins and the Arab conquerors of the Maghrib, was a semi-nomadic state led by a Muslim prince, or Emir. Trarza was one of three powerful emirates controlling the northwest bank of the Senegal river from the 17th to the 19th centuries CE: the Trarza, the Emirate of Brakna, and the Emirate of Tagant. (Read more...)

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Credit: Ferdinand Reus

Young boy at the beach in Nouakchott, Mauritania.

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Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya (Arabic: معاوية ولد سيد أحمد الطايع‎‎) (born 1941), also transliterated as Mu'awiya walad Sayyidi Ahmad Taya, was Prime Minister of Mauritania from 1981 to 1984 and president from 1984 to 2005. He guided Mauritania from military rule to democracy, and took a pro-Western stance in foreign affairs. He was ousted by a military coup in 2005.

Born in the town of Atar (Adrar Region), Ould Taya attended a Franco-Arabic Primary School from 1949 to 1955. He then attended Rosso High School in southern Mauritania. After graduation, he attended a French military school in 1960 and graduated as an officer. In 1975, he received strategic training at the French War Academy. In 1978 the Mauritanian army seized power and ousted President Moktar Ould Daddah, in an attempt to forestall government collapse in the war over Western Sahara against the Polisario Front (1975-79). Ould Taya was among the conspirators, and quickly gained influence within the government. (Read more...)

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