Western Sahara is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, while the remaining 80% is occupied by neighboring Morocco. The population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara.
About Western Sahara in brief
Western Sahara is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, while the remaining 80% is occupied by neighboring Morocco. The population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara. The Polisario Front has won formal recognition for SADR from 46 states, and was extended membership in the African Union. The African Union provides peacekeeping contingent to the UN mission which is deployed to control a buffer zone near the de facto border of walls built by Morocco. In 2020, the United States recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Moroccan normalisation of relations with Israel. Until 2017, no other member state of the United Nations had ever officially recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over parts of Western Sahara, but a number of countries have expressed their support for a future recognition of the Moroccan annexation as an autonomous part of the Kingdom. The U.S. has not issued any formal statement about the border separating the sovereign territories of Morocco and the S ADR in Western Sahara, until their conflict is resolved. Instead, the U.N. mission participates with the United Nation mission, in order to maintain a ceasefire and reach a peace agreement between its two members. The current current current situation can produce fog and heavy dew on the coast, with extreme heat in the summer, and heavy rain in the winter.
Among most arid and inhospitable on the planet, the land along the coast is low, low, and flat, with mountains reaching up to 600 metres on the eastern side. While there are no permanent streams, at times, a cool off-shore current can produce flash flooding in the spring and summer. The land rises from 25 to 30°C during winter, with average highs of 43–45°C in July and in August; average highs during winter are still hot, but very hot, however in the northern part of the Territory of Western Safari. The territory is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. It is the most populous territory on that list, and by far the largest in area. It has been on the United UN list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand. The United Nations considers the Polisarios Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, and maintains that the Sahrawis have a right to self-determination. In 1975, Spain relinquished the administrative control of the region to a joint administration by Morocco and Mauritania. Since a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire agreement in 1991, two-thirds of the Territory has been administered by the Moroccan government, with tacit support from France and the U States, and the remainder by the SADr, backed by Algeria.
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This page is based on the article Western Sahara published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 13, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
