Throughout this incredible virtual tour of Western Sahara, you and I will learn many interesting things about this incredible country. To advance through the different sections of this virtual tour, we will use the "5 Themes of Geography". If you do not know them yet, they are: Location, Place, Human-Environment Interaction, Region, and last Movement. This will not be all, also I add three other sections that can be very interesting, the first is "current events" that simply talk about great or strong impacts that had the country, whether political, war or natural effects. The second is based on a recommendation of why you should visit Western Sahara. Finally what probably surprises everyone, as is the life of a high school student. In this way we conclude our virtual journey through this country.
Western Sahara Basicamenta is covered by the Sahara desert, which is the largest in the world.
- The landscape is mostly low
- Flat desert (it is one of the most arid and inhospitable of the planet).
- There are some small mountains in the south and northeast.
- There are few rivers called "waids", but they are just simple depressions.
The sahara dunes take on varied and complex forms. few examples below:
- Crescent dunes
- Linear dunes
- Transverse dunes
- Star dunes
- Dome dunes
The climate in Western Sahara is typically hot, with dry deserts, rainfall is rare to appear, cold offshore, and the air sometimes produces fog and heavy dew.
The country shares borders with Mauritania and Morocco. Also shares it with Algeria to the northeast. On the other hand also is the Atlantic Ocean that acts like a natural border.
The rivers and lakes in western Sahara are scarce more when it comes to drinking water. The river "Nile" and the "Niger" river that pass through the country are of drinking water. On the other side now with the lakes, there are around 20 in the country, but only one is for drinking water and that is "Lake Chad". The other lakes contain briny stew of undrikable water.
We ended up with "Location", now it's the turn of our second geographic theme in the list, "Place".
Place
The definition of "Place" is the physical and human aspects of a location.
This entry list country's mineral , Petroleum, Phosphate, Iron, Hydropower and other resources of comercial importance.
The Saharawi people are the people living in the Western part of the Sahara desert which includes Western Sahara, other parts of southern Morocco (not claimed by the polisario), most of Mauritania and the extreme southwest of Algeria.
the islamic religion is the most practiced religion in Western Sahara.
FiSahara international film, is an annual that take place in one of the southwestern refugge cams in Algeria. Above the trailer of filming.
At this event actors, directors, and film industry insiders from around the world, join the saharawi people for a week_long festival of screenings, parallel activities, and concerts.
Government and economy of Western Sahara: (First go government followed by the economy).
Goverment:
Legal status of the territory is disputed and sovereighty uresolved: a UN referendum on the issue is planned. The territory is contested by Morocco and the Polisario front which in Feb. 1976, formally proclamed a goverment-in-exile of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Repiublic now officially recognized by about 55 countries.
Economy:
The majority of the territory of Western Sahara is currently admistrated by the kingdoom of Morocco. As such, thr vast majority of the conomical activity of Western Sahara happens in the framework of the economy of Morocco.
Now we leave behind "Place" to go to "human-enviorment interaction"
Human-Enviorment Interaction refers to the ways of people change their enviorment and how enviorment change them.
The agricultural sector in the Sahara region is an oasis kind mainly based on animal postoral production type associated with activities of irrigated agriculturein the oases.
- Total area of the Sahara region 24 million ha, including 130 ha of agricultura land.
- Irrigated is 500 ha devoted mainly to crops and vegetables
Antelopes suffered from hunting , Drought and loss of habitat. Less than 300 individuals.
Sahara Aphanius (only foud in the Sahara Desert). while its watery habitat has been drastically reduced by drought, groundwater contamination and pumping for agricultural use.
Sahara Cheetah, fewer tha 250 adults cheetahs left in the wild. Critically endangered on the IUCN Red LIst. Primary habitat Sahara's rocky mountains. Loss of habitat, hunting by the local people.
Here above I leave a video of the incredible and powerful cheetah.
There are several environmental problems such as deforestation, soil erosion, desertification
REGION
Region is an area of land that has common features. A region can be defined by natural or artificial features.
The population of Western Sahara this year is around 592, 077. The area of the country is 165,284 sq.mi. The GDP per capita of Western Sahara is $ 2,500. The life expectancy at birth for a male is 58.9 years, and for a woman is 63.4 years.
MovEMENT
An act of changing physical location or position or of having this changed.
There is no information about importing and exporting Western Sahara.
Since the disengagement of the Spanish forces in 1976, the Polisario proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as the state that represents the territory. Morocco controls most of the territory and administers it as its Southern Provinces, while the Polisario Front controls the remainder. The flag used in the area controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic consists of a black, white, and green horizontal tricolor charged with a red star and crescent in the center stripe and a red triangle at the hoist. Morocco uses their national flag, a red flag charged with the Star of Solomon colored in green, in areas they control.
Independence
In the waning days of General Franco's rule, and after the Green March, the Spanish government signed a tripartite agreement with Morocco and Mauritania as it moved to transfer the territory on 14 November 1975. The accords were based on a bipartite administration, and Morocco and Mauritania each moved to annex the territories, with Morocco taking control of the northern two-thirds of Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces, and Mauritania taking control of the southern third as Tiris al-Gharbiyya. Spain terminated its presence in Spanish Sahara within three months, repatriating Spanish remains from its cemeteries.
The Moroccan and Mauritanian annexations were resisted by the Polisario Front, which had gained backing from Algeria. It initiated guerrilla warfare and, in 1979, Mauritania withdrew due to pressure from Polisario, including a bombardment of its capital and other economic targets. Morocco extended its control to the rest of the territory. It gradually contained the guerrillas by setting up the extensive sand-berm in the desert (known as the Border Wall or Moroccan Wall) to exclude guerrilla fighters. Hostilities ceased in a 1991 cease-fire, overseen by the peacekeeping mission MINURSO, under the terms of a UN Settlement Plan.
Transportation
Transport in Western Sahara is very limited by sea, road and air with camels being the primary means of transport in the desert area. Road transport by buses remain the major mode of transportation. The longest conveyor belt in the world is 100 kilometres (62 mi) long, from the phosphate mines of Bu Craa to the coast south of Laayoune. The belt moves about 2,000 metric tons of rock containing phosphate every hour from the mines to El-Aaiun, where it is loaded and shipped.
Breaking News
In the first video, which was the one that I gave him the most attention, there is a kind of revolt among the people of Western Sahara.
Western Sahara Travel
Now I will give my opinion because I think that you should travel to Western Sahara. First and what I consider more attractive, crossing the Sahara Desert on camels, no doubt that would be incredible. I would also like to see famous structures of El-Aaiun. Seeing the different types of dunes would also be cool. And to conclude returning to the desert of the Sahara to do sand-boarding (like snow-boarding) and return to travel the desert in an ATV.
The End
This concludes our journey through Western Sahara. I hope you enjoyed it, and see you next time.
Credits:
Created with images by andrez_1 - "Wetland in desert. Water reserve." • NASA Earth Observatory - "Dust over the Atlantic Ocean" • Deidre Woollard - "iron ore" • Jan-Mallander - "open pit mining sand raw materials" • James St. John - "Crude oil-filled concretion (near Neota, Illinois, USA) 2" • James St. John - "Galena 3" • WikiImages - "sandboarding sand board sand" • jeffecastan - "desert quad tunisia"