Spanish Sahara (Spanish: Sáhara Español or Sahara Español; Arabic: الصحراء الاسبانية Al Sahra'a al Isbaniya) was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was ruled as a territory by Spain between 1884 and 1975. The territory represented one of the last remnants of the Spanish Empire, and was abandoned under internal pressures from native populations and the external claims of Morocco and Mauritania. Its sovereignty remains...
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Spanish Sahara (Spanish: Sáhara Español or Sahara Español; Arabic: الصحراء الاسبانية Al Sahra'a al Isbaniya) was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was ruled as a territory by Spain between 1884 and 1975. The territory represented one of the last remnants of the Spanish Empire, and was abandoned under internal pressures from native populations and the external claims of Morocco and Mauritania. Its sovereignty remains under dispute.
In 1884, Spain was awarded the coastal area of present-day Western Sahara at the Berlin Conference, and began establishing trading posts and a military presence. In the summer of 1886, under the sponsorship of the Spanish Society of Commercial Geography (Sociedad Española de Geografía Comercial), Julio Cervera Baviera, Felipe Rizzo (1823-1908), and Francisco Quiroga (1853-1894) traversed the colony of Rio de Oro, where they made topographical and astronomical observations in a land whose features were barely known at the time...
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