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Travel to Mauritania — Unbiased reviews and
great deals from TripAdvisorMauritania
| Islamic Republic of Mauritania National name: Al Jumhuriyah al Islamiyah
al Muritaniyah President: Sidi Ould
Sheik Abdellahi (2007) Prime
Minister: Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar (2005)
Current government officials
Land area: 397,837 sq mi (1,030,400 sq
km); total area: 397, 953 sq mi (1,030,700 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 3,364,940 (growth
rate: 2.8%); birth rate: 40.1/1000; infant mortality rate: 66.6/1000;
life expectancy: 53.9; density per sq km: 3
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Nouakchott, 661,400 Monetary unit: Ouguiya
Languages:
Hassaniya Arabic (official), Pulaar, Soninke,
French, Wolof
Ethnicity/race:
mixed Maur/black 40%, Maur 30%, black 30%
Religion:
Islam 100%
National Holiday:
Independence Day, November 28 Literacy rate: 42% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$5.947 billion; per capita $2,000. Real growth rate: 0.9%.
Inflation: 7.3%. Unemployment: 20% (2004 est.).
Arable land: 0.2%. Agriculture: dates, millet, sorghum,
rice, corn; cattle, sheep. Labor force: 786,000 (2001);
agriculture 50%, services 40%, industry 10% (2001 est.).
Industries: fish processing, mining of iron ore and gypsum.
Natural resources: iron ore, gypsum, copper, phosphate,
diamonds, gold, oil, fish. Exports: $784 million f.o.b. (2004
est.): iron ore, fish and fish products, gold. Imports: $1.124
billion f.o.b. (2004 est.): machinery and equipment, petroleum
products, capital goods, foodstuffs, consumer goods. Major trading
partners: Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium,
Côte d'Ivoire, China, Russia, U.S., UK (2004). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 26,500 (2001); mobile cellular: 35,000 (2001). Radio broadcast
stations: AM 1, FM 14, shortwave 1 (2001). Radios: 410,000
(2001). Television broadcast stations: 1 (2002).
Televisions: 98,000 (2001). Internet Service Providers
(ISPs): 5 (2001). Internet users: 7,500 (2001). Transportation: Railways: total: 717 km
(2002). Highways: total: 7,720 km; paved: 830 km; unpaved:
6,890 km (2000). Waterways: ferry traffic on the Senegal River.
Ports and harbors: Bogue, Kaedi, Nouadhibou, Nouakchott, Rosso.
Airports: 26 (2002). International
disputes: Mauritanian claims to Western Sahara have been dormant
in recent years.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Mauritania, three times the size of Arizona, is
situated in northwest Africa with about 350 mi (592 km) of coastline on
the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Morocco on the north, Algeria and
Mali on the east, and Senegal on the south. The country is mostly desert,
with the exception of the fertile Senegal River valley in the south and
grazing land in the north.
Government
Military rule. The legal system is based on
Islam.
History
Mauritania was first inhabited by blacks and
Berbers, and it was a center for the Berber Almoravid movement in the 11th
century, which sought to spread Islam through western Africa. It was first
explored by the Portuguese in the 15th century, but by the 19th century
the French gained control. They organized the area into a territory in
1904, and in 1920 it became one of the colonies that constituted French
West Africa. In 1946, it was named a French Overseas territory.
Mauritania became an independent nation on Nov.
28, 1960, and was admitted to the United Nations in 1961 over the
strenuous opposition of Morocco, which claimed the territory. In the late
1960s, the government sought to make Arab culture dominant. Racial and
ethnic tensions between Moors, Arabs, Berbers, and blacks were
frequent.
Mauritania and Morocco divided the territory of
Spanish Sahara (later called Western Sahara) between them after the
Spanish departed in 1975, with Mauritania controlling the southern third.
The Polisario Front, indigenous Saharawi rebels, fought for the territory
against both Mauritania and Morocco. Increased military spending and
rising casualties in the region helped bring down the civilian government
of Ould Daddah in 1978. A succession of military rulers followed. In 1979,
Mauritania withdrew from Western Sahara.
In 1984, Col. Maaouye Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya took
control of the government. He relaxed Islamic law, fought corruption,
instituted economic reforms urged by the International Monetary Fund, and
held the country's first multiparty parliamentary elections in 1986.
Although the 1991 constitution set up a multiparty democracy, politics
remains based on ethnic and racial lines. The primary conflict is between
blacks, who dominate southern regions, and the Moorish-Arabic north, which
runs the country. Racial tensions reached a peak in 1989 when Mauritania
went to war with Senegal in a dispute over the border. As each country
repatriated citizens of the other, critics accused Mauritania of taking
the opportunity to expel thousands of blacks.
Although Mauritania officially abolished slavery
in 1980, the nation continues to tolerate the enslavement of blacks by
North African Arabs. In 1993, the U.S. State Department estimated that
there were more than 90,000 chattel slaves in the country.
In 1992, Taya won the nation's first multiparty
presidential election, which opponents charged was rigged. Taya's attempts
to restructure the economy provoked periodic protests, the most serious of
which were the bread riots in Nouakchott in 1995.
In 2002, the government banned a political
party, Action for Change (AC), which has campaigned for greater rights for
blacks, calling it racist and violent. Two other opposition parties have
been banned in the past few years. The IMF granted Mauritania debt relief
in June 2002, wiping out $1.1 billion, half of Mauritania's overall
debt.
Coup attempts in June 2003 and Aug. 2004 were
thwarted. Taya's crackdown on Islamists and his support for Israel and the
U.S. were believed to have sparked the attempts to overthrow him. In Aug.
2005, however, President Taya was deposed by military officers while out
of the country. In June 2006, voters approved to limit the presidency to
two five-year terms.
Mauritania started its march toward democracy in
November 2006, when local and regional elections were held throughout the
country. Presidential elections followed in March 2007. None of the 19
candidates won more than 50% of the vote in the first round, and the two
top candidates, Sidi Ould Sheik Abdellahi, a former government minister,
and Ahmed Ould Daddah, an opposition leader, faced off in the country's
first-ever second round of voting. Abdellahi prevailed in the runoff to
become the country's first democratically elected president.
In July 2008, the country's top four military
leaders deposed Prime Minister Boubacar and President Abdellahi in a
bloodless coup. Some of the same military leaders were involved in the
2005 coup that brought Abdellahi to power. In recent months, the country's
legislature has criticized Abdellahi's handling of rising food prices and
accused the government of corrution.
See also Encyclopedia: Mauritania.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Mauritania
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Mauritania from Infoplease:
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