Western Sahara

Lines drawn by France and Spain

On 9 January 1885 Spain declared its protection over the Atlantic coast between Cabo Blanco (20°51′N) and Cabo Bojador (26°8′N), without saying how far inland it reached.^[2] A Franco-Spanish convention of 27 June 1900 fixed the southern and inland edges of the Spanish territory, but not its northern one.^[2]

The Franco-Spanish treaty of 3 October 1904 set the parallel of 27°40′N as the line south of which the land lay outside Morocco and Spain had a free hand.^[1] It also set the eastern end of that line at the meridian of 8°40′W, which is still the territory’s short border with Algeria.^[1][2]

North of 27°40′N lay a strip of southern Morocco that Spain ran as part of its Saharan territory, the Spanish Southern Zone around Tarfaya.^[1] Spain handed it to Morocco on 17 April 1958, and from then on 27°40′N was the border between Morocco and Spanish Sahara.^[1]

Claims and a court opinion

In 1961 the US Geographer reported that the line itself was not in dispute, but that Moroccan officials claimed land as far south as the Senegal river.^[1] That claim covered all of Spanish Sahara, all or most of Mauritania, part of Mali and part of western Algeria.^[1]

The UN General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice two questions: was the territory, when Spain colonised it, land that belonged to no one, and what legal ties did it have with Morocco and with the “Mauritanian entity”?^[6] In its advisory opinion of 16 October 1975 the court said it was not land belonging to no one.^[6] It found ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the peoples living there, and ties with the Mauritanian entity too, but no tie of territorial sovereignty.^[6] It said this did not change the application of the UN’s 1960 resolution on self-determination to the territory.^[6]

“The materials and information presented to it did not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between the territory of Western Sahara and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity.”^[6]

Partition, war and a wall

On 16 October 1975 King Hassan II announced a “Green March” into the territory, and about 350,000 Moroccans were mobilised for it.^[7] It set off on 6 November and lasted until 9 November.^[7] On 14 November Spain, Morocco and Mauritania reached the Madrid Accords, which divided the territory between Morocco and Mauritania.^[7][3]

The Polisario Front (the Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y de Río de Oro) opposed both claims, and war broke out between it and the two countries.^[3] Spain left in 1976.^[3] On 27 February 1976 the Polisario proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.^[8] Mauritania gave up its claim in 1979 in an agreement with the Polisario.^[3]

The African Union dates the Sahrawi Republic’s membership of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, to 22 February 1982.^[8] Morocco left the organisation in 1984 in protest, and returned to the African Union only in 2017, while the Sahrawi Republic kept its seat.^[9]

Morocco and the Polisario accepted UN settlement proposals on 30 August 1988.^[3] On 29 April 1991 the Security Council set up MINURSO, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, and a ceasefire generally held from September 1991.^[3] After the 1991 agreement, Morocco controlled most of the territory.^[4] A sand wall, the berm, about 2,700 km long, separates the Moroccan and Polisario forces.^[4][3]

Who draws what

From 21 October 2020 the road at Guerguerat, the crossing into Mauritania, was blocked. Morocco said Polisario fighters blocked it; the Polisario said civilian protesters did. Morocco sent troops to reopen it.^[4] In November 2020 the Polisario withdrew from the ceasefire and said it was resuming its armed struggle.^[3]

On 10 December 2020 the United States announced that it recognised Moroccan sovereignty over the whole of Western Sahara.^[10] The proclamation said that “genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution”.^[11] Six days later the State Department’s Geographer told US government mapmakers to remove the border along 27°40′N, show the territory as part of Morocco, and not use the name “Western Sahara” on standard maps.^[10]

On 31 October 2025 the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2797 by 11 votes in favour, with China, Russia and Pakistan abstaining; Algeria did not take part in the vote.^[5] It called for negotiations on the basis of the autonomy plan Morocco proposed on 11 April 2007, and extended MINURSO to 31 October 2026.^[5]