Cape Juby (, trans. ''Raʾs Juby'', es, link=no, Cabo Juby) is a cape on the coast of southern Morocco, near the border with Western Sahara, directly east of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

. Its surrounding area, including the cities of

Tarfaya Tarfaya ( ar, طرفاية - ''Ṭarfāya''; ber, ⵟⵔⴼⴰⵢⴰ) is a coastal Moroccan town, located at the level of Cape Juby, in western Morocco, on the Atlantic coast. It is located about 890 km southwest of the capital Rabat, and ...

and Tan-Tan, is called the Cape Juby Strip (after the

homonymous In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones (equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definition, ...

cape), the Tarfaya Strip (after the

city) or the Tekna Zone (after the Tekna, the native Saharawi tribe). The region is presently the far south of internationally recognized Morocco, and makes up a semi-desert

buffer zone A buffer zone is a neutral zonal area that lies between two or more bodies of land, usually pertaining to countries. Depending on the type of buffer zone, it may serve to separate regions or conjoin them. Common types of buffer zones are demil ...

between Morocco proper at the

Draa River :''Dra is also the abbreviation for the constellation Draco.'' The Draa ( ber, Asif en Dra, ⴰⵙⵉⴼ ⴻⵏ ⴷⵔⴰ, ary, واد درعة, wad dərʿa; also spelled Dra or Drâa, in older sources mostly Darha or Dara) is Morocco's longest ...

and Western Sahara. The strip was under Spanish rule during much of the 20th century, officially as part of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, but mainly administered alongside

Saguía el-Hamra Saguia el-Hamra ( es, Saguía el Hamra, ar, الساقية الحمراء, lit=Red Canal, translit=al-Saqiyah al-Hamra'a) was, with Río de Oro, one of the two territories that formed the Spain, Spanish province of Spanish Sahara after 1969. Its ...

and Río de Oro as part of Spanish Sahara, with which the Strip had closer cultural and historical links.

Modern history

Precolonial era

On May 28, 1767, Mohammed ben Abdallah, the

Sultan of Morocco This is the list of rulers of Morocco, since the establishment of the state in 789. The common and formal titles of these rulers has varied, depending on the time period. Since 1957, the designation King has been used. The present King of Moroc ...

, signed a peace and commerce treaty with King

Charles III of Spain it, Carlo Sebastiano di Borbone e Farnese , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Philip V of Spain , mother = Elisabeth Farnese , birth_date = 20 January 1716 , birth_place = Royal Alcazar of Madrid, Spain , death_d ...

. In the treaty, Morocco was unable to guarantee the security of Spanish fishermen along the coasts south of the Noun River, as Morocco did not have control over the Tekna tribes of that area (Art. 18). On March 1, 1799, Sultan

Slimane Slimane or Sliman is an alternative of Suleiman (in Arabic name ) being the Arabic version of the name Solomon. The name means "man of peace". It is also a common given name and surname. It may refer to Given name ;Sliman * Sliman Mansour (bor ...

signed an accord with King Charles IV of Spain, in which he recognized that the Saguia el Hamra and Cape Juby regions were not part of his dominions (Art. 22). In 1879, the British North West African Company established a trading post near Cape Juby called " Port Victoria". On March 26, 1888, Moroccan soldiers attacked the post, killing the director of the post and leaving two workers badly injured. In 1895, the company sold its post to the Sultan of Morocco.

Spanish protectorate

In 1912, Spain negotiated with France (which controlled the affairs of Morocco at the time) for concessions on the southern coast of Morocco. officially occupied the Cape Juby region for Spain on July 29, 1916. It was administered by Spain as a single entity with Spanish Sahara and the Ifni enclave, as Spanish West Africa. The Spanish area comprised and had a population of 9,836. Its main town was founded by the Spanish as Villa Bens (now called

). Villa Bens was used as a staging post for airmail flights.

Retrocession to Morocco

When Morocco regained full independence in 1956, it requested the cession of officially Moroccan areas controlled by Spain. After some resistance and some fighting during 1957 (the Ifni War), the Spanish government in 1958 ceded the Cape Juby Strip to Morocco.

Sahara sea

In 1877, the Scottish engineer Donald Mackenzie was the first to propose the creation of a Sahara Sea. Mackenzie's idea was to cut a channel from one of the sand-barred lagoons north of Cape Juby south to a large plain which Arab traders had identified to him as

El Djouf El Djouf ( ar, الجوف) is a desert, an arid natural region of sand dunes and rock salt which covers northeastern Mauritania and part of northwestern Mali. El Djouf is a part of the Sahara Desert in the north. El Djouf is 320 meters (1,050 fee ...

. Mackenzie believed this vast region was up to below sea level and that flooding it would create an inland sea of suited to commercial navigation and even agriculture. He further believed that geological evidence suggested this basin had once been connected to the Atlantic via a channel near the Saguia el-Hamra. He proposed that this inland sea, if augmented with a canal, could provide access to the Niger River and the markets and rich resources of West Africa. There are several small depressions in the vicinity of Cape Juby; at below sea level, the

Sebkha Tah Sebkha Tah, also named as Sabkhat Tah, Sebja Tah or Sebjet Tah, is a sabkha in southern Morocco. At 55 metres below sea level it is the lowest point of the country. It is located close to Atlantic Ocean and the border with Western Sahara. The mai ...

is the lowest and largest. But it covers less than and is north of the geographical area identified as

(also known as the Majabat al-Koubra) which has an average elevation of 320 m. Mackenzie never travelled in this area but had read of other sub-sea level desert basins in present-day Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt similar to those found near Cape Juby. These basins contain seasonally dry

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). ...

s, known as

chott In geology, a chott, shott, or shatt (; ar, شط, šaṭṭ, lit=bank, coast) is a salt lake in Africa's Maghreb that stays dry for much of the year but receives some water in the winter. The elevation of a chott surface is controlled by the pos ...

s or sebkhas. Egypt's Qattara Depression is perhaps the largest such basin in North Africa.

References