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 , it is now part of the Western Sahara territory administered by Morocco . The name, which can be translated as “gold river”, comes from a so-called dry river bed ( wadi ) in the center of the area.
The total area was 184,000 km². The provincial capital was the port of Ad-Dakhla, called Villa Cisneros in Spanish times .
In 1975 Spain withdrew its troops and surrendered its colonial possessions to its southern and northern neighbors, Morocco and Mauritania .
The 26th parallel formed the northern border and the Tropic of Cancer runs through the territory . The southern border began at Cabo Blanco , which forms a peninsula on which the second most important place La Gouira is located. This peninsula continued to be occupied by Mauritania , although it withdrew from the rest of the territory it had inherited from Spain between 1976 and 1979 prior to its recognition of the newly established Sahara Democratic Republic .
The border between the zones of the former Spanish colonies administered by Mauritania and Morocco was a line that began in the coastal area north of Villa Cisneros or Dakhla at latitude 24 ° north and ran in the east to the Mauritanian border at latitude 23.
The original name Rio do Ouro goes back to Portuguese merchants who exchanged their goods for gold dust in 1442 and therefore believed to be here at the mouth of the gold-rich state of Mali, which became known in Europe in the 14th century, under Mansa Musa , although gold was never found there , but only further south in Akjoujt and in the gold country of the Wangara south of the Niger . Some historical maps - such as one from 1529 by Diego Ribera - show the course of a river from the heart of Black Africa to the Atlantic , while newer maps show a much shorter river bed that flows into the Gulf of Wadi Megeta Mersug , although a Spanish government expedition assigned it as early as 1886 concluded that there was no river. The reason for the error may be the long and narrow shape of the gulf, which made the first discoverers believe it was an estuary.