Choum ( ar, شوم) is a town in northern Mauritania, lying in the

Adrar Region Adrar ( ar, ولاية أدرار) 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 Mauritania ...

close to the

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

with

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the ...

. 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 Polisario Front, Frente Polisario, Frelisario or simply Polisario, from the Spanish abbreviation of (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro), (in ar, rtl=yes, الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير الس� ...

, the national

liberation movement A liberation movement is an organization or political movement leading a rebellion, or a non-violent social movement, against a colonial power or national government, often seeking independence based on a nationalist identity and an anti-imperial ...

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 it opening in 1963. It consists of a single, railway line linking the iron mining centre of Zouérat with the port of Nouadhibou, via Fd ...

from

Nouadhibou Nouadhibou (; ar, نواذيبو, Nwādībū, Berber: Nwadibu, formerly in French: ) is the second largest city in Mauritania and serves as a major commercial centre. The city itself has about 118,000 inhabitants expanding to over 140,000 in the l ...

on the Atlantic coast to

Zouérat Zouérat ( ar, الزويرات) is the largest town in northern Mauritania and the capital of Tiris Zemmour region, with an approximate population of 44,649 (2013). It lies at the eastern end of the Mauritania Railway to Nouadhibou. History ...

, and a transport interchange for access to the

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

and the Mauritanian capital

Nouakchott , image_skyline = Nouakchott.jpg , image_caption = City view of Nouakchott , pushpin_map = Mauritania#Arab world#Africa , pushpin_relief = 1 , mapsize = , map_caption ...

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 Nouadhibou to Zouérat to exploit the iron ore 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, but imposed conditions unacceptable to the French. The French engineers therefore built the line parallel with the border and tunneled through the Choum hillspur — two kilometres through solid

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) 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 cools and solidifies under ...

just to stay within French territory. The tunnel has been called a "monument to European stupidity in Africa". The absurdity was highlighted when the southern part of the territory of Western Sahara was briefly administered by Mauritania after the Spanish withdrew in 1975/1976. 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, Atash, or Azar ( ae, 𐬁𐬙𐬀𐬭, translit=ātar) 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 considered to ...

now runs all the way to north

, but the sandy track paralleling the railway west to

traverses low dune cordons so is much easier in a 4WD. 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