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( Nouakchott)
Nouakchott (Arabic ???????? or ????????? [alleged translation from Berber "The place of the winds"] Nawakšu?) is the capital and by far the largest city of Mauritania. It is the Sahara's largest city if one excludes marginal cases like Cairo (in the Nile River Delta) and the cities north of the Atlas Mountains on Africa's northern coast. The city is the administrative and economic centre of Mauritania. Located on the Atlantic coast of the Sahara, it lies on the west coast, on the Atlantic Ocean, although with the exception of Nouakchott Wharf and a deep water port, the coastal strip is mostly left empty and allowed to flood. Due to the rapid build-up, the city is quite spread out, with few tall buildings. It also often acts as an interface between urban Mauritanians and their nomadic fellow citizens. Nouakchott is built around a large tree-lined street, Avenue Abdel Nasir, which runs northeast through the city center from the airport. Other major streets are named (in French) for notable Mauritanian figures, or international personages of the 1960s Avenue de Gaulle, Avenue Kennedy, and Avenue Lumumba, for example.
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