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Sahara
Sahara [Arab.,=desert], world's largest desert, c.3,500,000 sq mi (9,065,000 sq km), N Africa; the western part of a great arid zone that continues into SW Asia. Extending more than 3,000 mi (4,830 km), from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, the Sahara is bounded on the N by the Atlas Mts., steppe...
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Charles Foucauld, vicomte de
Charles Foucauld, vicomte de , 1858-1916, French priest and missionary in the Sahara. After a career as an army officer and an explorer in Algeria and Morocco, he entered a Trappist monastery in 1890. In 1901 he was ordained and volunteered to go to the Sahara under the patronage of the White Father...
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Hamites
Hamites African people of caucasoid descent who occupy the Horn of Africa (chiefly Somalia and Ethiopia), the western Sahara, and parts of Algeria and Tunisia. They are believed to be the original settlers of N Africa. The Hamitic cradleland is generally agreed to be in Asia—perhaps S Arabia ...
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Moktar Ould Daddah
Moktar Ould Daddah , 1924-2003, president of Mauritania (1961-78). He became premier when Mauritania joined the French Community (1958). Elected president when Mauritania gained independence (1961), he identified the nation with Arab North Africa. Reelected four times, he was overthrown in a coup in...
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French Community
French Community established in 1958 by the constitution of the Fifth French Republic to replace the French Union . Its members consisted of the French Republic, which included metropolitan France (continental France, Corsica, Algeria and the Sahara), the overseas territories (Comoro Islands, Fren...
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Hassan II
Hassan II , 1929-99, king of Morocco (1961-99). Formerly crown prince Moulay Hassan ben Mohammed Alaoui, he ascended the throne on the death (1961) of his father, Muhammad V . A graduate of the Univ. of Bordeaux, Hassan became chief of staff of the Moroccan army in 1957. In 1965 political unrest in...
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Maghreb
Maghreb or Magrib [Arab.,=the West], Arabic term for NW Africa. It is generally applied to all of Morocco , Algeria , and Tunisia but actually pertains only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the Atlas Mts. and the Mediterranean Sea. Some writers also included Spa...
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Western Sahara
Western Sahara territory (2005 est. pop. 273,000), 102,703 sq mi (266,000 sq km), NW Africa, occupied by Morocco. It borders on the Atlantic Ocean in the west, on Morocco in the north, on Algeria in the northeast, and on Mauritania in the east and south.
Land and People
The territory is d...
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oasis
oasis , an area within a desert where the water table reaches the surface, with enough moisture to permit the growth of vegetation. The water may come up to the surface in springs, or it may collect in mountain hollows. In deserts such as the Sahara, artificial oases have been successfully created b...
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Sahel
Sahel , name applied to the semiarid region of Africa between the Sahara to the north and the savannas to the south, extending from Senegal and Mauritania on the west, through Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, N Nigeria, Chad, and Sudan, to Ethiopia and Eritrea on the east. Beginning in the late 1960s the ...
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