It is the southernmost town of Western Sahara. La Güera is situated south of the Moroccan Wall and is technically abandoned.
History
The name La Güera comes from the Spanish word Agüera which is a ditch that carries rainwater to crops.
Foundation and settlement
Residence of the Spanish Governor in La Güera, 1935.
La Güera came into existence in late 1920, when Spanish colonizer Francisco Bens (who had earlier taken possession of the Cape Juby region as a protectorate in 1916), after negotiating with tribal chiefs of the zone, established a fort and an air base on the western side of the Ras Nouadhibou peninsula, just a few kilometers away from the French settlement of Port-Étienne (now Nouadhibou) on the eastern side of the peninsula. (In the 1912 Convention of Madrid, Spain and France had agreed on a border between Mauritania and Spanish possessions that ran down the middle of the peninsula.)
In 1924, La Güera was incorporated into the Spanish colony of Río de Oro. During the short period (1920–1924) that the town was ruled as a separate part of the colony it released its own postage stamps.[1][2] The town was served by La Güera Airport until the 1970s.
In 1979, when Mauritania withdrew from the war, La Güera's population was estimated to be 816 inhabitants.[3]
By 2002, it had been abandoned and partially overblown by sand, inhabited only by a few Imraguen fishermen[4][5] and guarded by a Mauritanian military outpost, despite this not being Mauritanian territory.[5]
Twin towns and sister cities
Signboard showing, among others, the twinning of La Güera with the Spanish town of Crevillent
