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Ifni

(Encyclopedia)Ifni ēfˈnē [key], former Spanish possession (580 sq mi/1,502 sq km), SW Morocco, on the Atlantic Ocean. The main industry is fishing. Ifni was ceded by Morocco to Spain in 1860, but Spanish adminis...

Foucauld, Charles, vicomte de

(Encyclopedia)Foucauld, Charles, vicomte de shärl vēkôNtˈ də fo͞okōˈ [key], 1858–1916, French priest and missionary in the Sahara. After a career as an army officer and an explorer in Algeria and Morocco,...

Río de Oro

(Encyclopedia)Río de Oro: see Western Sahara. ...

Libyan Desert

(Encyclopedia)Libyan Desert, northeast part of the Sahara Desert, NE Africa, in SW Egypt, E Libya, and NW Sudan; called the Western Desert in Egypt. It is a region of sand dunes, stony plains, and rocky plateaus. T...

Hamites

(Encyclopedia)Hamites, African people of caucasoid descent who occupy the Horn of Africa (chiefly Somalia and Ethiopia), the western Sahara, and parts of Algeria and Tunisia. They are believed to be the original se...

Nubian Desert

(Encyclopedia)Nubian Desert, eastern region of the Sahara Desert, c.157,000 sq mi (407,000 sq km), NE Republic of Sudan, NE Africa, between the Nile and the Red Sea. The arid region, largely a sandstone plateau, ha...

Tafilalt

(Encyclopedia)Tafilalt –lĕt [key], oasis in the Sahara, SE Morocco, c.530 sq mi (1,370 sq km). It has date groves and small trading settlements. After c.760 it was an independent kingdom for nearly two centuries...

French Community

(Encyclopedia)French Community, established in 1958 by the constitution of the Fifth French Republic to replace the French Union. Its members consisted of the French Republic, which included metropolitan France (co...

Nachtigal, Gustav

(Encyclopedia)Nachtigal, Gustav go͝osˈtäf näkhˈtēgäl [key], 1834–85, German explorer in Africa. He went (1869) on a mission for the king of Prussia to the sultan of Bornu. He visited the central Sahara reg...

Ghat

(Encyclopedia)Ghat or Gat both: gät [key], walled town, SW Libya, in an oasis in the Sahara, near the Algerian border. It formerly was an important caravan center. Ghat was captured by the Ottoman Turks in 1875, b...

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