🇲🇷 Mauritania
Nouakchott
Nouakchott is the capital of Mauritania and one of the world's youngest capital cities, built from scratch in 1958 on a coastal Saharan sandbar to serve as the administrative centre of the newly independent nation — before that it was a small village of a few hundred people. The city of 1.3 million (one-third of Mauritania's entire population) is entirely a 20th-century invention and shows it: vast sandy boulevards, the central market (Marché Capitale) as the true urban heart, and the Atlantic Ocean coast where traditional pirogue fishing communities operate at the Plage des Pêcheurs within the city itself. Mauritania is one of the most ethnically complex countries in Africa, with Arab-Berber Moors (Beydane and Haratin), Wolof, Soninke and Fulani populations creating a cultural tension that still manifests in the country's struggles with slavery (officially abolished 1981 but persistent — Mauritania was the last country in the world to criminalise slavery, in 2007). The country's great attraction lies outside Nouakchott itself — the ancient caravan cities of Chinguetti (1 of the 7 holy cities of Islam, library of 33,000 manuscripts) and Ouadane in the Adrar Plateau are UNESCO heritage and accessible by 4WD expedition from the capital, along with the Banc d'Arguin National Park (UNESCO, the world's second-largest bird sanctuary, with 2 million migratory birds wintering on the Atlantic coast) and the world's most extreme train journey (the iron ore train across the Sahara from Nouadhibou to Zouerate).