Page last updated on February 28, 2018

Population:
603,253
note: estimate is based on projections by age, sex, fertility, mortality, and migration; fertility and mortality are based on data from neighboring countries (July 2017 est.)
country comparison to the world: 169
[see also: Population country ranks ]

Nationality:
noun: Sahrawi(s), Sahraoui(s)
adjective: Sahrawi, Sahrawian, Sahraouian

Ethnic groups:
Arab, Berber

Languages:
Standard Arabic (national), Hassaniya Arabic, Moroccan Arabic

Religions:
Muslim

Demographic profile:
Western Sahara is a disputed territory; 85% is under Moroccan control. It was inhabited almost entirely by Sahrawi pastoral nomads until the mid-20th century. Their traditional vast migratory ranges, based on following unpredictable rainfall, did not coincide with colonial and later international borders. Since the 1930s, most Sahrawis have been compelled to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and to live in urban settings as a result of fighting, the presence of minefields, job opportunities in the phosphate industry, prolonged drought, the closure of Western Sahara’s border with Mauritania from 1979-2002, and the construction of the defensive berm separating Moroccan- and Polisario-controlled (Sahrawi liberalization movement) areas. Morocco supported rapid urbanization to facilitate surveillance and security. Today more than 80% of Western Sahara’s population lives in urban areas; more than 40% live in the administrative center Laayoune. Moroccan immigration has altered the composition and dramatically increased the size of Western Sahara’s population. Morocco maintains a large military presence in Western Sahara and has encouraged its citizens to settle there, offering bonuses, pay raises, and food subsidies to civil servants and a tax exemption, in order to integrate Western Sahara into the Moroccan Kingdom and, Sahrawis contend, to marginalize the native population. Western Saharan Sahrawis have been migrating to Europe, principally to former colonial ruler Spain, since the 1950s. Many who moved to refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, also have migrated to Spain and Italy, usually alternating between living in cities abroad with periods back at the camps. The Polisario claims that the population of the Tindouf camps is about 155,000, but this figure may include thousands of Arabs and Tuaregs from neighboring countries. Because international organizations have been unable to conduct an independent census in Tindouf, the UNHCR bases its aid on a figure of 90,000 refugees. Western Saharan coastal towns emerged as key migration transit points (for reaching Spain’s Canary Islands) in the mid-1990s, when Spain’s and Italy’s tightening of visa restrictions and EU pressure on Morocco and other North African countries to control illegal migration pushed sub-Saharan African migrants to shift their routes to the south.

Age structure:
0-14 years: 37.24% (male 113,581/female 111,077)
[see also: Age structure - 0-14 years country ranks ]
15-24 years: 19.53% (male 59,309/female 58,478)
[see also: Age structure - 15-24 years country ranks ]
25-54 years: 34.33% (male 102,031/female 105,093)
[see also: Age structure - 25-54 years country ranks ]
55-64 years: 5.03% (male 14,153/female 16,178)
[see also: Age structure - 55-64 years country ranks ]
65 years and over: 3.87% (male 10,287/female 13,066) (2017 est.)

NOTE: 1) The information regarding Western Sahara on this page is re-published from the 2018 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Western Sahara People 2018 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Western Sahara People 2018 should be addressed to the CIA.
2) The rank that you see is the CIA reported rank, which may habe the following issues:
  a) The assign increasing rank number, alphabetically for countries with the same value of the ranked item, whereas we assign them the same rank.
  b) The CIA sometimes assignes counterintuitive ranks. For example, it assigns unemployment rates in increasing order, whereas we rank them in decreasing order

---

• Main Index
• 2018 Index
• Country Ranks
• Definitions
• Western Sahara Index 2018
• Western Sahara Main Index
• Introduction
• Geography
  Maps
• People
  Religion
• Government
  Gov. Leaders   Flags
• Economy
• Energy
• Communications
• Transportation
  Airport Codes
• Transnational Issues
• Photos
• Advertise Here
• Feedback

---