Western Sahara ( Arabic: الصحراء الغربية (help·info); transliterated: as-Ṣaḥrā' al-Gharbīyah; Spanish: Sahara Occidental) is a territory in North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the north and east, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to 266,000 square kilometres (103,000 sq mi). It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of de...
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Western Sahara ( Arabic: الصحراء الغربية (help·info); transliterated: as-Ṣaḥrā' al-Gharbīyah; Spanish: Sahara Occidental) is a territory in North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the north and east, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to 266,000 square kilometres (103,000 sq mi). It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The largest city is El Aaiún (Laâyoune), which is home to over half of the population of the territory, in total estimated at just more than 500,000.
Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since the 1960s when it was a Spanish colony. The Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement, with its Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) government, dispute control of the territory.
Since a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire agreement in 1991, most of the territory has...
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