Laayoune

Laayoune, written El Aaiún in Spanish, is a young city by the standards of the Sahara. Spain established a post here in 1938, choosing a site beside the Saguia el-Hamra where wells gave water in an otherwise dry plain, and the post quickly became the administrative centre of its Spanish Sahara colony. Until then the settled population of the region was concentrated at older caravan and religious centres inland, while the coast was used by nomadic herders moving between grazing and wells.

Growth came with phosphate. The deposit at Bou Craa, about 100 kilometres inland, went into production in 1972, and the colonial administration built a hospital, an air base, a cathedral in 1954 and housing for its officials and settlers. As Spain prepared to withdraw in 1975, Morocco pressed its claim to the territory and took over administration of the area; the Polisario Front, which had declared a Sahrawi republic, fought a war that lasted until a United Nations ceasefire in 1991. Many residents left for refugee camps near Tindouf in Algeria during those years, while others arrived from Morocco.

Since then the city has been the seat of the Moroccan regional administration, while remaining under the supervision of the United Nations mission, MINURSO. Public spending, tax incentives and jobs in administration, fishing and mining have multiplied its population many times over since the 1970s, producing the wide avenues and housing estates of the present city. A low-level armed confrontation resumed along the sand berm in November 2020, and in 2025 the Security Council pointed to Morocco's autonomy proposal as a basis for negotiations. The political question remains unresolved, and it shapes daily life here more than anything else.

The city's culture is Sahrawi and Hassaniya-speaking, and closely related to that of Mauritania: a desert tradition of tents, camels, sung and recited poetry, and hospitality expressed through tea. The tea ceremony is its clearest expression — green tea boiled with a great deal of sugar, poured from a height to raise foam and drunk in three small glasses, each a little different, over a conversation that is not meant to be hurried. Women wrap themselves in the melhfa, a long piece of printed cloth in strong colours that is the most visible marker of Sahrawi identity in the street.

Alongside this, the city carries a strong Moroccan public culture, since a large part of the population came from the north over the past five decades: Moroccan Arabic is widely heard beside Hassaniya, French appears on official signs, and Spanish survives among older residents as a legacy of the colonial schools. Moroccan national holidays set the public calendar, and Ramadan reorders the day for almost everyone.

Custom is conservative and family-centred. Greetings are extended and unhurried, the right hand is used for eating and passing, and guests are fed generously whether or not they are hungry. Football is followed closely and has its local club and stadium. Politics, by contrast, is a subject handled carefully in public; the presence of security forces is constant, and visitors are expected not to photograph them.

Laayoune is the largest settlement in Western Sahara, with about 263,000 residents recorded in 2024. It is above all an administrative city: government offices, the regional council, schools, hospitals and the security services are among the largest employers, supported by Moroccan public investment and tax advantages that have drawn families south for work. Fishing at the port, phosphate from Bou Craa, and, increasingly, greenhouse agriculture and wind power make up much of the rest.

Most people live in flat-roofed concrete houses spread across the plateau north and east of the riverbed, in districts built quickly over the last few decades and served by neighbourhood shops, bakeries and mosques. Life follows the heat: early mornings, a long quiet middle of the day, and streets that fill again after sunset, when the central squares and boulevards are busy with families, football and cafés. Water is piped and desalinated, and its supply is a permanent constraint.

Divisions run under the surface of daily routine. Long-standing Sahrawi families and more recent arrivals from Morocco live side by side, employment and housing are contested subjects, and the unresolved status of the territory is felt in the number of police, the checkpoints on the roads out of town, and the caution with which public matters are discussed.

The food of Laayoune belongs to two traditions at once: the Sahrawi desert kitchen and southern Moroccan cooking. From the first come camel meat, roasted or stewed; méchoui, a whole lamb or goat roasted for celebrations; and dates and camel milk. From the second come tagines of chicken with preserved lemon or of lamb with prunes, couscous, harira soup during Ramadan, and skewered grilled meat sold from street counters.

The Atlantic, cold and extremely rich here, supplies the rest. Sardines, mackerel, sole, sea bream and octopus are landed at the port west of the city and grilled over charcoal or fried in a light coating, served with bread, cumin, salt and a tomato and onion salad. Fish is cheap, plentiful and eaten often, which distinguishes coastal Sahrawi cooking from that of the interior.

Tea is not an afterthought but the frame of the day. The three glasses, poured in sequence from a small pot over a brazier, are offered to any visitor and accompany business, argument and idleness alike. Sugar is used generously and arrives in the market as hard cones wrapped in blue paper. Bread is present at every meal and used in place of cutlery, and the city's markets supply the spices, dates, dried meat and cloth that stock a household.