🇲🇷 Mauritania

Berber peoples, alongside Niger-Congo and Bafour groups, formed the earliest documented population of the region. The Bafour were among the first Saharan peoples to abandon nomadism for agriculture before migrating southward in response to desertification.

Groups of Arab tribes moved into what is now Mauritania in the late seventh century. Their arrival introduced the religion, language and culture that would come to define the country's identity.

The Umayyads were the first Arab Muslims to enter Mauritania during the Islamic conquests. Many Berber tribes fled the Arab arrival towards the Gao region of Mali, reshaping the ethnic map of the western Sahara.

Several nomadic Berber confederations in the desert regions overlapping present-day Mauritania united in the eleventh century. The resulting empire expanded north and south, stretching from the Sahara to the Iberian Peninsula.

According to a disputed Arab tradition, the Almoravids conquered the ancient and extensive Ghana Empire around 1076. The episode marks the height of Saharan Berber military reach into West Africa.

Thirty years of resistance to the invading Maqil Arabs, led by the Beni Hassan tribe, ended in defeat. The Beni Hassan warriors' descendants became the upper stratum of Moorish society, and their Hassaniya dialect became the dominant language of the largely nomadic population.

The name was adopted from a proposal by Xavier Coppolani, a French military and colonial administrator. It fixed the label under which the colonial territory, and eventually the independent state, would be known.

Coppolani combined strategic alliances with Zawaya tribes and military pressure on Hassane warrior nomads to extend French rule over the Mauritanian emirates. He was instrumental in the colonial occupation and the creation of modern-day Mauritania.

French forces subdued three of the principal southern emirates in successive campaigns. The northern emirate of Adrar held out longer, aided by the anticolonial jihad of shaykh Maa al-Aynayn and insurgents from occupied regions.

Mauritania was constituted as a territory of French West Africa, first as a protectorate and later as a colony. This created the administrative shell that would become the independent state.

The colonial declaration was the first formal abolition of slavery in the territory, but it had very little effect in practice. Slavery would be abolished again in 1981 and criminalised only in 2007.

The last resisting northern emirate fell to French forces in 1912. Its incorporation completed the territorial definition of colonial Mauritania and ended organised armed resistance to the conquest.

Persistent drought from the mid-1960s onward drove desert expansion across Mauritania's arid plains. The process undermined the pastoral and agricultural base on which most of the population depended.

Mauritania declared independence from France on 28 November 1960, with Nouakchott, then little more than a fortified village, chosen by France as the site of the new capital. Around 90 per cent of the population was still nomadic at independence, and larger numbers of sub-Saharan African peoples subsequently settled north of the Senegal River, staffing the new state as clerks, soldiers and administrators.

The new state ratified the international convention in 1961, having already implicitly enshrined the abolition of slavery in its 1959 constitution. Enforcement nonetheless remained minimal for decades.

Mauritania began exporting iron ore from the Zouérat mines in 1963, using a new 675-kilometre railway and a purpose-built port. The mineral became the backbone of the economy, and the state later nationalised the mining company in 1974.

Daddah, originally installed by the French, established an authoritarian presidential regime with his Parti du Peuple Mauritanien as the sole ruling organisation. He justified this on the grounds that the country was not ready for Western-style multiparty democracy, and was re-elected unopposed in 1976 and 1978.

The diocese was established in 1965 to serve the small Catholic population, mostly foreign residents from West Africa and Europe. Mauritania remains almost entirely Muslim, predominantly Sunni.

The droughts of the early 1970s exacerbated poverty and conflict and forced most nomads and many subsistence farmers into the cities. The arabized elite responded by intensifying pressure to arabise law, education and other aspects of national life.

Mauritania annexed the southern part of Western Sahara in 1976 after Spain's withdrawal, renaming it Tiris al-Gharbiyya while Morocco took the north, in a project framed as creating a "Greater Mauritania". Guerrilla attacks by the Polisario Front on Mauritanian forces and mines soon pushed the country toward economic and political crisis and close to collapse.

Officers ousted President Moktar Ould Daddah in a bloodless coup on 10 July 1978, after the disastrous and costly war to annex part of Western Sahara brought his government to the brink of collapse. Mustafa Ould Salek's Military Committee for National Recovery took power but quickly fell, replaced by the Military Committee for National Salvation, and military governments ruled for most of the following decades.

Facing repeated defeats by the Algerian-backed Polisario Front and severe military and economic strain, Mauritania signed an agreement with the Polisario in 1979 renouncing its claim to southern Western Sahara and withdrawing its troops. Colonel Haidallah's renunciation of all claims brought peace with the Polisario and improved relations with Algeria but soured ties with Morocco and France; Morocco subsequently occupied the vacated territory, deepening its own conflict with the Polisario.

Thousands of black Mauritanians, chiefly of the Halpularen group, were expelled and their property seized amid the border conflict with Senegal. UNHCR estimated 52,995 Mauritanian refugees in Senegal and at least 13,000 in Mali as of June 1991; many were repatriated after 2007.

The 1981 decree was the second formal abolition of slavery after the colonial declaration of 1905. No criminal law against the ownership of slaves was enacted until 2007, and anti-slavery activists continued to be persecuted.

Colonel Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya deposed Haidallah in a coup in December 1984 and went on to rule with a heavy hand for more than two decades. He retained tight military control but relaxed the political climate, moderated the pro-Algerian stance and re-established ties with Morocco while adopting strict neutrality on Western Sahara; the series of presidential elections he held were widely seen as flawed.

The country's first deepwater port opened near the capital in 1986. It gave Mauritania an independent maritime outlet for trade.

A dispute over grazing rights at Diawara between Moorish herders and Senegalese farmers escalated when Mauritanian guards killed two Senegalese on 9 April 1989, triggering riots in Senegal, a campaign of terror against and expulsions of black Mauritanians, and reprisals against Moors in Senegal. Low-scale conflict continued into 1990–91 before an internationally brokered airlift, and the United Nations recorded tens of thousands of Mauritanian refugees in Senegal and Mali by mid-1991.

The 1991 constitution put an end to formal military rule and permitted opposition parties. Ould Taya's subsequent election victories were nevertheless dismissed as fraudulent by some opposition groups.

Close co-operation with Iraq and a strongly Arab nationalist line left Mauritania increasingly isolated internationally. Tensions with Western countries grew dramatically before a mid-to-late 1990s shift towards co-operation with the United States and Europe.

Successive national and municipal elections from 1992 produced limited decentralisation. Control nonetheless remained tightly concentrated in the executive branch of the central government.

From 1999 all teaching in the first year of primary school has been in Modern Standard Arabic, with French introduced in the second year. French remains the language of all scientific courses, entrenching a bilingual system.

A court sentenced MPs Marieme Cheikh Dieng and Ghamou Achour to four years' imprisonment on 4 May 2026 for insulting President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani and alleging racial discrimination by Arab Mauritanians against Black Mauritanians. Rights groups said the case highlighted continuing sensitivity around ethnic politics.

The World Bank said Mauritania's economy grew 4.2 per cent in 2025, down from 6.3 per cent in 2024, and forecast a rebound to 4.4 per cent in 2026. It projected inflation rising to 4.8 per cent on higher global food and energy prices.

Boubacar Ould Messaoud, founder of the anti-slavery organisation SOS-Esclaves, died in March 2026 at the age of 80. He had campaigned for decades against the persistence of slavery and caste-based discrimination in Mauritania, despite periods of official harassment.

Mauritania sent a ministerial delegation to US-convened talks with Algeria, Morocco and the Polisario Front in Madrid in early February 2026, followed by further talks in Washington on 23 and 24 February. It was the first time all four parties had met since 2019.

The International Finance Corporation, the World Bank Group's private-sector arm, said its Mauritania commitments totalled $120 million as of 28 February 2026, focused on mining, energy, agribusiness and lending to small businesses. Its sister agency MIGA held a separate $300 million portfolio in gold mining.

An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification assessment covering November 2025 to October 2026, published on 5 January 2026, tracked acute malnutrition levels across Mauritania. The findings fed into humanitarian planning amid pressure from drought conditions and the continued arrival of refugees from Mali.

UNHCR recorded a further rise in Malian refugees at the Hodh Chargui camps in eastern Mauritania as of 13 January 2026, part of a refugee and asylum-seeker population estimated at around 309,000. Numbers have grown steadily since instability increased in Mali from 2023.

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on 16 December 2025 imposing partial travel restrictions on Mauritanian citizens, part of an expanded list covering 39 countries. The restrictions came five months after Ghazouani attended a White House summit on critical minerals.

The World Bank's board discussed a new Country Partnership Framework for Mauritania on 25 November 2025, running to 2030 under the banner Economic Diversification for Growth and Employment. It prioritises job creation, stronger institutions, digital and physical infrastructure and reduced dependence on extractive industries.

Sidi Ould Tah, a former Mauritanian finance minister, was sworn in as the ninth president of the African Development Bank Group on 1 September 2025, becoming the first Mauritanian to lead a multilateral finance institution. He had been elected to the post in May 2025.

Ghazouani won the presidential election held on 29 June 2024. His re-election consolidated the civilian constitutional order established after 2019.

A surge in refugee arrivals in the Canary Islands prompted visits by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez in early 2024. The subsequent agreement paid Mauritania to reduce the passage of African migrants through its territory; the UN estimates 150,000 Malians have fled to the country.

Aziz was arrested in June 2021 amid a probe into alleged embezzlement. In December 2023 he was sentenced to five years in prison for corruption, a rare instance of accountability for a former head of state.

Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, a former army chief of staff and ally of the outgoing president, won the June 2019 election, marking Mauritania's first peaceful transfer of power between elected presidents since independence. He was sworn in on 1 August 2019.

The law of 27 April 2018 imposed a mandatory death sentence for "blasphemous speech" or acts deemed sacrilegious, removing the option of substituting prison terms for apostasy-related crimes even where the offender repents. It also created prison terms and fines for offending public indecency and Islamic values.

In late 2018 Mauritania paid MEPs, including Antonio Panzeri, not to speak ill of the country. The affair later surfaced as part of the Qatar corruption scandal at the European Parliament.

After the Senate rejected his proposals to change the constitution, Aziz called a referendum in August 2017 that abolished the upper house. The national flag was also changed on 5 August 2017, with two red stripes added to symbolise sacrifice and defence.

The invitation to the Brisbane summit marked a degree of international rehabilitation for Mauritania. It reflected the country's return to standing after the isolation that followed the 2008 coup.

Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz sustained injuries in an accidental shooting by his own soldiers in October 2012 but continued to maintain his authority.

In February 2011 the wave of regional uprisings spread to Nouakchott, where thousands demonstrated. The protests tested the legitimacy of Abdel Aziz's newly consolidated government.

After Abdallahi's forced resignation and negotiations with opposition figures, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz — who had deposed him in August 2008 and installed a military council government — won the election of 18 July 2009 with 52% of the vote and was sworn in the following month. Western, Arab and African states almost unanimously accepted the result, lifting sanctions and resuming relations.

On 6 August 2008 the presidential guard took the palace in Nouakchott and arrested President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the prime minister and the interior minister, a day after 48 ruling-party lawmakers resigned, cutting short the term of Mauritania's first freely elected president. The junta, led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, installed a military council government, faced diplomatic sanctions and cancelled aid projects, banned demonstrations and broke off relations with Israel.

Mauritania criminalised slavery in August 2007, abolishing it for a third time after earlier declarations in 1905 and 1981 that lacked effective enforcement, this time with criminal penalties for slave ownership. The State Department later judged government efforts insufficient to enforce the antislavery law, and campaigners say the practice persists in parts of the country while anti-slavery activists continue to report arrests and harassment.

The presidential election of 11 March 2007 completed the transfer from military to civilian rule after the 2005 coup and was the first multi-candidate presidential contest since independence. Independent candidate Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi won in the second round and was inaugurated in April 2007 as Mauritania's first freely and fairly elected president.

The country confronts a terrorism threat from al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has staged attacks on Mauritanian soil, and continues to experience ethnic tensions between its Afro-Mauritanian population and the white and black Moor (Arab-Berber) communities.

On 26 June 2006, 97% of voters backed a constitution capping the duration of a president's stay in office. Junta leader Colonel Vall promised to abide by the result and relinquish power peacefully; parliamentary and municipal elections followed on 19 November and 3 December 2006.

On 3 August 2005 army officers seized key points in Nouakchott while President Maaouya Ould Taya was abroad at King Fahd's funeral, ending his 21-year rule without loss of life, and formed the Military Council for Justice and Democracy. Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall was named president and the junta promised and organised elections within two years, while a new constitution limiting presidential terms was approved by referendum in 2006.

Oil was found offshore in 2001 during the Ould Taya presidency. The discovery offered Mauritania a new source of export revenue beyond agriculture, livestock and mining.

Mauritania established diplomatic relations with Israel on 28 October 1999, following Egypt and Jordan as one of the few Arab League members to do so. The move formed part of a wider realignment towards the United States and Europe, rewarded with diplomatic normalisation and aid; relations were broken off after the 2008 coup, suspended after the 2008–09 Gaza war and formally severed in 2010.

A joint World Bank–International Monetary Fund mission agreed an enhanced structural adjustment facility worth $54 million. The deal tied Mauritanian economic policy to internationally supervised reform.