page_title: Mauritania
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Mauritania / Culture
context_page_description: Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in Northwest Africa. It is the eleventh largest sovereign state in Africa and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest.
  The country derives its name from the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania, which existed from the 3rd century BCE into the 7th century CE in the modern-day Morocco and West Algeria. Prior to the Islamization of the country by Arab conquests in the 8th century, Mauritania was inhabited by nomadic Berbers since the 3rd century. Mauritania became a French colony during the European Scramble for Africa. Approximately 90% of Mauritania's land is within the Sahara; consequently, the population is concentrated in the south, where precipitation is slightly higher. The capital and largest city is Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast, which is home to around one-third of the country's 4 million people. The country's official religion is Islam, with almost the entire population being Sunni Muslims.
context_section_description: Filming for several documentaries and films has taken place in Mauritania, including Fort Saganne (1984), The Fifth Element (1997), Winged Migration (2001), and Timbuktu (2014).
  The T'heydinn is part of Moorish oral tradition.
  The libraries of Chinguetti contain thousands of ancient manuscripts
caption: Qur'an collection in a library in Chinguetti
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