All but a small strip along the southwest is in the Sahara(2) Desert or its semi-arid transitional belt in the south, the Sahel(3). The desert is a sandy set of plateaus, subject to dust storms, and of little use to humans beyond some oases and a narrow near-ocean zone tempered by off-shore winds. The Sahel is used for grazing and light agriculture, while the Chemama belt in the southwest allows more intensive agriculture. This zone fronts the Sénégal River, part of the national border. Otherwise inland water is scarce; the nearly dry Dgamcha salt marsh(4) north of the capital, is the most notable hydrographic feature.
Nine in ten people speak Hassaniyya spoken Arabic. About one in twenty--all in the Chemama--speak Fulfulde, locally called Pulaar, and often called Fulani.
Almost everyone is Moslem.
The only city with half a million or more people is the capital, Nouakchott(5). Some believe that it is from a monastery near here--and not on an island near the mouth of the Sénégal--that the Almoravid dynasty of Mauritania and Morocco emerged.
Before about 200 B.C.E., the Chemama and Sahel were inhabited by speakers of Mande languages like Soninke and Wolof(6)--still spoken in the Chemama--and Fulfulde; all three are Niger-Congo languages. Berbers, like today's Zenaga, moved south into the area by about 200 B.C.E. The Sahelian trade routes were contested between the Berbers and the Soninke, with the Soninke ahead in the first millenium--as the core of the Ghana Empire, and the Arabized and Islamicized Berbers thereafter--as the Almoravids (or Moors). The present day form of spoken Arabic evolved from this group's hegemony.
north and northwest
east
south of the eastern Hodh ech Chargui
south of western Hodh ech Chargui
south of the south center
southwest
west
(1) Muritaniya in strict transliteration from Arabic, Mauritanie in French.
(2) Translates as 'wilderness' from Arabic.
(3) Translates as 'shore' from Arabic.
(4) Sebkra de Ndaghamcha or Sebkhet te-n-Dgamcha in transliterated Arabic.
(5) Also transliterated from Arabic as Nawaksut.
(6) Ouolof in French.