Río de Oro: Difference between revisions

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'''Río de Oro''' ([[Spanish language|Spanish]] for "Gold River"; {{Lang-ar|وادي الذهب}}, ''wādī-að-ðahab'', often transliterated as ''Oued Edhahab'') was, with [[Saguia el-Hamra]], one of the two territories that formed the [[Spain|Spanish]] province of [[Spanish Sahara]] after 1969; it had been taken as a [[Spanish Empire|Spanish colonial]] possession in the late 19th century. Its name seems to come from an east–west river which was supposed to have run through it. The river was thought to have largely dried out – a [[wadi]], as the name indicates – or have disappeared underground.
 
The Spanish name is derived from its previous name ''Rio do Ouro'', given to it by its Portuguese discoverer [[Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia]] in 1436. The Portuguese prince [[Henry the Navigator]] dispatched a mission in 1435, under [[Gil Eanes]] and Baldaia, to find the legendary River of Gold in western Africa. Going down the coast, they turned aroundrounded the [[Ad Dakhla, Western Sahara|al-Dakhla]] peninsula in present-day [[Western Sahara]] and emerged into an inlet, which they excitedly believed to be the mouth of the River of Gold. (See [[Senegal River]].) The name continued to be used for the inlet and the surrounding area although no gold was found there, neither in the water of the narrow gulf, probably mistaken for the river itself, nor in its neighborhood.
 
Occupying the southern part of Western Sahara, the territory lies between 26° to the north and 21° 20' to the south. The area is roughly {{Convert|184,000|km|mi|abbr=on}}, making it approximately two thirds of the entire Western Sahara.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=O0zODQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1332&dq=rio+de+oro|title=The Statesman's Year-Book 1971-72: The Businessman's Encyclopaedia of all nations|last=Paxton|first=J.|date=2016-12-28|publisher=Springer|year=|isbn=9780230271005|location=|pages=1332|language=en}}</ref> The former provincial capital founded by the [[Spain|Spanish]] [[colonialism|colonizers]] was Villa Cisneros, which was renamed under Moroccan administration in 1976 "[[Dakhla, Western Sahara|ad-Dakhla]]".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z0OeCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA412&dq=Villa+Cisneros&f=false|title=Administrative Subdivisions of Countries: A Comprehensive World Reference, 1900 through 1998|last=Law|first=Gwillim|date=1999-10-01|publisher=McFarland|year=|isbn=9780786460977|location=|pages=412|language=en}}</ref>