Río de Oro

Río de Oro was the southern of the two provinces of the former Spanish colony of Spanish Sahara. Together with the northern province of Saguia el Hamra is now part of the territory administered by Morocco Western Sahara. The one with " Gold River " to be translated name comes from a so- called dry river bed ( wadi ) in the center of the area.

The total area was 184,000 km ². Provincial capital, was named to the Spanish times Villa Cisneros harbor Ad Dakhla.

In 1975, Spain withdrew its troops and handed over its colonial possessions in the southern and northern neighbors, Morocco and Mauritania.

The 26th degree of latitude constituted the northern border and runs through the territory of the Tropic of Cancer. The southern boundary began at Cabo Blanco, which forms a peninsula, on which the second most important town of La Gouira is. This peninsula was further occupied by Mauritania, although it withdrew from the rest of the area, which had taken it from his recognition of the newly founded state Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic between 1976 and 1979 from Spain.

The boundary between managed by Mauritania and Morocco zones of the former Spanish colonies represented a line north of Villa Cisneros or Dakhla at 24 ° north latitude began in the coastal area and in the east went to the Mauritanian border at the height of 23 degrees latitude.

The original name of Rio do Ouro goes back to Portuguese merchants who in 1442 their goods exchanged for gold dust and therefore believed to be here, at the mouth of became known in Europe in the 14th century gold-rich state of Mali under Mansu Musa, although there never gold was found but until further south in Akjoujt and gold land of Wangara south of the Niger. Some historical maps - as one from 1529 by Diego Ribera - have a river running from the heart of black Africa to the Atlantic Ocean, while newer cards show a much shorter river bed, which expires in the Gulf of Wadi Megeta Mersug, although a Spanish government expedition in 1886 to which concluded that there was no flow. The cause of the error can be considered the long and narrow shape of Golf, held by the first explorers him for a river mouth.

• Region in Africa
• Geography (Western Sahara)