Africa
To which language should you translate to localize in Mauritania?
LANGUAGE INSIGHT
Official language
Arabic
Actual languages
Hassaniya (81.7%; 3.9 min), Wolof (6.6%; 320k), Tukulor (5.4%; 262k), Soninke (2.7%; 131k), Berber (1.2%; 58k), Fulfulde (1.2%; 58k), other (1.2%; 58k).
What the top 150 best localized websites in the world do in Mauritania
(Top 150 websites listed in the Global by Design ranking – published annually by Byte Level Research, this report provides a list of globally localized websites, showcasing best practices and emerging trends in their globalization)
- 6/150 localize by translating into French
- 1/150 localizes by translating into Arabic, Wolof, Soninke, Bambara
- 1/150 localizes by translating into Arabic, Wolof and Bambara
- 1/150 localizes by translating into, French and Arabic
- 1/150 localizes by translating into, French and Portuguese
- 1/150 localizes by translating into Arabic
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3M
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ABB
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Accenture
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Adidas
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Adobe
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Airbnb
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Aldi
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Amazon
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American Airlines
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American Express
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Apple
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Audi
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Autodesk
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Avis
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Bayer
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BMW
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Booking.com
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Bosch
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British Airways
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Bumble
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Burberry
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BYD
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Canon
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Capgemini
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Cartier
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Caterpillar
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Chevrolet
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Cisco Systems
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Citibank
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Coca-Cola
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Costco
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Dell
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Deloitte
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Delta
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DHL
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Disney+
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Dyson
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eBay
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Eli Lilly
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Emirates
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Ernst & Young
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Facebook
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FedEx
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Ford
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Four Seasons
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Fujifilm
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GE
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Gillette
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GoDaddy
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Google
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Gucci
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Haier
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Heineken
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Hermès
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Hertz
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Hilton
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Hisense
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Hitachi
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Honda
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Hotels.com
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HP
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HP Enterprise
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HSBC
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Huawei
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Hyatt
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Hyundai
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IBM
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IKEA
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Intel
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InterContinental Hotels
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J&J
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Jack Daniel's
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Jehovah’s Witnesses
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John Deere
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Kellogg's
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Kia
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KPMG
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L'Oréal
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Land Rover
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LEGO
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Lenovo
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Lexus
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LG
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Louis Vuitton
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Lululemon
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LUSH
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Marriott
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MasterCard
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McDonald's
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Mercedes-Benz
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Merck
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Microsoft
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Mitsubishi Electric
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Nestlé
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Netflix
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Nike
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Nikon
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Nintendo
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Nio
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Nissan
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NIVEA
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Oracle
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Pampers
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Panasonic
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PayPal
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Pepsi
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Pfizer
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Philips
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Pitney Bowes
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Porsche
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Procter & Gamble
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PWC
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Revolut
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Rolex
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Royal Caribbean
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Salesforce
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Samsung
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Sanofi
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SAP
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Sephora
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Shopify
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Siemens
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Sony
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Spotify
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Starbucks
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Steelcase
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Stripe
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Subaru
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Tesla
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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Tiffany
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Tinder
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Toshiba
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Toyota
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TripAdvisor
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Uber
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United Airlines
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UPS
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Visa
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Volkswagen
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Volvo Cars
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Vrbo
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Walmart
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Western Union
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Wikipedia
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Wise
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WordPress
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Workday
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Xerox
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Xiaomi (Mi)
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Zara
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Zoom
If you need others information, below you can find a selection of economic/social/cultural data
Overview
Language
Official language
Arabic
T-index
0.005%
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.
Actual languages
Hassaniya, Wolof, Tukulor, Soninke, Berber, Fulfulde, other.
Demography
Capital: Nouakchott
Currency: Ouguiya
Population: 4.86M
Population density: 4/km2
Economy
GDP: 10.45 billion USD (2023)
GDP per capita: 2,149.4 USD ‎(2023) ‎
Exports: $4.9 billion (2022)
Statistics
Internet users: 44.4% penetration, 2.19 million
Unemployment rate: 10.4% (2019)
Urbanisation: 58% (2023)
Literacy: 67% (2021)
Conventions
Numbering system
Arabic numerals are not used.
Date format: dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00222
Language data sources: Worldatlas/Britannica//EF/Wikipedia/Worlddata.info; Demography data sources: IMF/Worldometers; Conventions data source: Wikipedia; Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal; Statistics data sources: Datareportal/WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF/Culturalatlas/Commisceoglobal
Facts and data
Economy
Imports
$5.43 billion (2022). Refined Petroleum ($384M), Wheat ($267M), Raw Sugar ($220M), Palm Oil ($157M), and Iron Pipes ($140M), importing mostly from China ($974M), Spain ($356M), Morocco ($312M), United Arab Emirates ($303M), and Indonesia ($303M).
Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of age)
• 19% have an account with a financial institution
• 3.3% have a credit card
• 4% have a mobile money account
• 9.9% make online purchases
Ease of doing business
Ease of doing business is medium (rated 51.1 out of 100), ranked 26th out of 48 Sub-Saharan African countries, and ranked 152nd out of 190 countries worldwide (2023, World Bank).
Global Innovation Index
Ranked 23rd out of 28 Sub-Saharan African countries, 127th out of 132 worldwide.
The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.
Exports
$4.9 billion (2022). Gold ($1.78B), Iron Ore ($1.56B), Processed Crustaceans ($444M), Non-fillet Frozen Fish ($399M), and Animal Meal and Pellets ($158M), exporting mostly to China ($1.17B), Canada ($591M), United Arab Emirates ($578M), Spain ($429M), and Turkey ($301M).
Economic freedom
‘Mostly unfree’ (rated 55.3 out of 100) ranked 17th out of 47 Sub-Saharan African countries and ranked 110th out of 184 countries worldwide (2024, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).
Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal
Service Imports (2015)
Service Exports (2015)
Source: OEC
Trade balance of goods from 2012 to 2022
Source: Statista
Historical Data Trade Imports
The following section uses historical trade data imports from partners of Mauritania.
Historical Data Trade Exports
The following section uses historical trade data exports from partners of Mauritania.
Source: OEC
Mauritania's Most Specialized Products
Specialization is measured using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), an index that takes the ratio between Mauritania observed and expected exports in each product.
Source: OEC
Mauritania's Most Complex Exports
The Product Complexity Index (PCI) measures the knowledge intensity of a product by considering the knowledge intensity of its exporters.
The Top Export Opportunities for Mauritania by Relatedness
Relatedness measures the distance between a country's current exports and each product by showing only products that Mauritania is not specialized in.
Source: OEC
Market Growth Imports
This score represents the likelihood that the given country will start importing that product in the next few years. It forecasts the opening of a new specific market.
Market Growth Exports
This score represents the likelihood that the given country will start exporting that product in the next few years. It forecasts the opening of a new specific market.
Source: OEC
Foreign direct investment, net inflows (% of GDP)
Source: WorldBank
T-index
Reach most of the online purchasing power
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales. It estimates the market share of each country in relation to global e-commerce.
Try it nowMedia
Media language
Arabic and French.
Information channels:
Privately-owned outlets provide competition for the state broadcaster, Telediffusion de Mauritanie (TDM). There is easy access to pan-Arab and European satellite TV. Print newspapers have low circulations and some only publish irregularly. Some have moved to online-only publication. Media rights groups say self-censorship is commonplace, especially when covering sensitive topics such as the military, corruption, and slavery. Legislation criminalises critical speech and “blasphemy”. Although internet use has risen substantially, driven by mobile access, it still only reaches a minority of the population. However, dozens of online news outlets have emerged.
The press
Chaab, external – state-run daily, in Arabic
Horizons, external – state-run daily, in French
Akhbar, external – private, Arabic weekly
Essirage, external – private, Arabic daily
L’Authentique, external – private, French-language daily
Television
Television de Mauritanie (TVM), external – state-run, operates Elmouritania and Elmouritania 2 and thematic networks
Sahel TV, external – private
Al-Mourabitoun TV, external – private, pro-Islamist
Chinguett TV – private
El Wataniya, external – private
Radio
Radio Mauritanie, external – state-run, programmes in Arabic and French; also operates youth network and Koran network
Radio Sahara Media FM – private
Mauritanid FM – private
News agency
Mauritanian News Agency (AMI), external – state-run
Arriyada, external – private, news website
Sahara Medias, external – private, news website
Atlas Info, external – private, news website
Tiguend, external – private, news website
Cridem, external – private, news portal
Media data source: BBC
Internet Data
Internet users
44.4% penetration, 2.19 million.
Share of web traffic by device
88.86% mobile phones, 10.57% computers (laptops and desktops), 0.56% tablet devices, others 0.01%.
Median speed of fixed Internet connection
21.44 Mbps
Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 129.6%
Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 79.9%
Most popular web search engines
Google (97.21%), Bing (1.92%), Yahoo! (0.5%), YANDEX (0.13%), DuckDuckGo (0.11%), other (0.14%).
Most used social media
Facebook (79.81%), Twitter (10.67%), YouTube (6.09%), Instagram (2.4%), Pinterest (0.81%), LinkedIn (0.15%), reddit (0.07%), other (0.01%).
Internet data sources: Datareportal/Statcounter
Social statistics
Life expectancy
65 yrs (2022)
Corruption perception Index
Mauritania scored 30 out of 100, ranked 130th out of 180 countries worldwide.
Current health expenditure
4.12% of GDP
CO2 emissions
0.9 metric tons per capita
World Happiness Index
Mauritania ranked 133 out of 146 countries, with a score of 4.153.
Social statistics sources: WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF
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Country Curiosities
Mauritania became the last country on earth to abolish slavery – almost 200 years after it was abolished in Europe. Thus, even though Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981, it never criminalized it until 2007. However, even with criminalization, it remains one of those illegal activities that the government turns a blind eye to.
Recently, various human rights records indicated that there are more than 90,000 slaves in Mauritania, the largest of any place in the world. Slavery is practiced along ‘racial’ lines.
Additionally…
- The Sahara Desert covers 2/3 of the country!
- Mauritania has less than 1% of the interior water body.
- The capital of Mauritania is Nouakchott which means “place of the winds”.
- After independence in 1960, the capital city of Nouakchott did not exist and had to be created. Therefore, Nouakchott is one of the world’s newest capitals.
- Mauritania is rich in mineral resources, especially iron and ore. The iron ore reserves generate about one-half of Mauritania’s national revenue.
- Mauritania has one of the longest trains in the world. The Iron Ore Train or Train du Desert is frequently 2.3 kilometers long.
- Today one-third of Mauritania’s population of 4.86 million lives in Nouakchott and Nouadhibou.
- Mauritania is one of only two countries in the world to not use a decimal currency. The other is Madagascar.
- In Mauritania’s people use clan names rather than family names.
- If you look at Mauritania from space, you can see a clear bull’s eye-like image called “The Eye of Africa”.
Photo credit: Renato Brazioli, Unsplash