Choum () is a town in northern

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

, lying in the

Adrar Region Adrar () is a large administrative region in Mauritania, named for the Adrar Plateau. The capital is Atar. Other major towns include Choum, Chinguetti and Ouadane. The region borders Western Sahara and the Mauritanian region of Tiris Zemm ...

close to the

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

with

Western Sahara Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...

. In the year 2000, Choum had a population of 2,735.

History

The town grew from its position on trans-Saharan trading routes. It declined with the trade, and, in 1977, was attacked by French troops as a suspected base of the

Polisario Front The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro (Spanish language, Spanish: ; ), better known by its acronym Polisario Front, is a Sahrawi nationalism, Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement seeking to end the occupatio ...

, the rebel organization fighting for independence for the Western Sahara. Fortifications from the period survive around the town.

Transport

Choum is a stop on the

Mauritania Railway The Mauritania Railway is the national railway of Mauritania. Construction of the line began in 1960, with its opening in 1963. It consists of a single, railway line linking the iron mining center of Zouérat with the port of Nouadhibou, via ...

from

Nouadhibou Nouadhibou (; , ), formerly named Port-Étienne, is the second largest city in Mauritania and serves as a major commercial center. The city has about 173,000 inhabitants. It is situated on a 65-kilometre peninsula or headland called Ras Nouadhibou ...

on the Atlantic coast to

Zouérat Zouérat () is the largest town in northern Mauritania and the capital of the Tiris Zemmour region, with an approximate population of 62,380 (2023). It lies at the eastern end of the Mauritania Railway to Nouadhibou. History The town devel ...

, and a transport interchange for access to the

Adrar Plateau The Adrar (, Berber languages, Berber for "mountain") is a highland natural region, natural and historical region of the Sahara, Sahara Desert in northern Mauritania. The Adrar Region, an administrative division of Mauritania, is named after th ...

and the Mauritanian capital

Nouakchott Nouakchott ( ) is the capital and largest city of Mauritania. Located in the southwestern part of the country, it is one of the largest cities in the Sahara. The city also serves as the administrative and economic center of Mauritania. Once a ...

Railway tunnel

The town stands on a spur of land which carries the major turning-point in the border between Mauritania and the Western Sahara. In the early 1960s, the French colonial authorities in Mauritania wished to build the line from

to exploit the

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

reserves at Zouérat. The Spanish authorities then responsible for the Western Sahara negotiated to allow the railway to be built through Spanish territory over relatively level

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

, but imposed many conditions unacceptable to the French. The French engineers therefore designed the line parallel to the border and a tunnel through the Choum hill spur — two kilometers through solid

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

just to stay within French territory. The tunnel is no longer in use and a 5 km section of the railway cuts right through the Polisario controlled part of the Western Sahara (). The N1 highway from

Atar Atar, Ahtra, Atash, Azar () or ''Dāštāɣni'',, s.v. ''agni-.'' is the Zoroastrian concept of holy fire, sometimes described in abstract terms as "burning and unburning fire" or "visible and invisible fire" (Mirza, 1987:389). It is conside ...

now runs all the way to north

. The sandy track paralleling the railway west to

traverses low dune cordons. Regular vehicles can be loaded onto a flatbed wagon at Choum.

References

External links

{{Communes of Mauritania Communes of Adrar region Railway stations in Mauritania

History

Transport

Railway tunnel

See also

References

External links