Greater Mauritania

"Greater Mauritania" is a term for the Mauritanian irredentist claim to Western Sahara, and possibly other Moorish or Sahrawi-populated areas of the western Sahara desert.

Its main competing ideologies have been Sahrawi nationalism, Moroccan irridentism, Tuareg nationalism and Pan-Arabism.

The term was first used by Mauritania's first president, Mokhtar Ould Daddah, as he began claiming the territory then known as Spanish Sahara even before Mauritanian independence in 1960. In 1957, Ould Daddah stated

The basis for his claim was the close ethnic and cultural ties between the Mauritanian Moors and the Sahrawis of Spanish Sahara, in effect forming two subsets of the same tribal Arabo-Berber population. Both areas had been part of the premodern Bilad Chinguetti (Arabic: بلاد شنقيط Bilād Šinqīṭ‎‎), the Land of Chinguetti, a religious center in contemporary Mauritania.

The claim to the Spanish Sahara was again popularized by the regime in the early 1970s, as Spain prepared to depart the colony. Mauritania then feared Moroccan expansion towards its border, against the background of competing claims for a "Greater Morocco" that had previously included not only Spanish Sahara, but also Mauritania in its entirety. (Morocco had refused to recognize Mauritania from independence in 1960, although relations were established in 1969.)

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