There are a number of airports in Western Sahara. However, not all Western Sahara airports have regularly scheduled flights. We do not list the smallest Western Sahara airports, since there is no way to provide you flights from those airports. AirGorilla offers flights, hotels, and rental car reservations for Western Sahara.
Western Sahara (Arabic: al-Gharbiyah; Spanish: Sahara Occidental) is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. It is a territory of northwestern Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria in the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. The largest city is El Aaiun (Laayoune), which is home to a majority of the population of the territory. Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories since the 1960s when it was a Spanish colony.
The Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front's Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) dispute control of the territory. Since a United Nations-sponsored cease-fire agreement in 1991, most of the territory has been administered by Morocco, the remainder by the SADR as the Free Zone. The SADR is recognized by 43 states, and a full member of the African Union.
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR or Saharawi; Spanish: Republica Arabe Saharaui Democrática (RASD)) is a largely unrecognized de facto state that does not currently control the majority of its claimed territory, the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara. It was proclaimed on February 27, 1976 by the Polisario Front. Currently, Morocco administers the majority of the territory as its Southern Provinces; the SADR claims to control the rest as the Free Zone.
When the former Spanish Sahara was evacuated by Spain, both Morocco and Mauritania moved in to annex it; neither gained international recognition and war with the independence-seeking Polisario Front, representing the Sahrawi indigenous people, ensued. The creation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was announced in Bir Lehlou in Western Sahara on February 27 1976, as the Polisario declared the need for a new entity to fill what they considered a political void left by the departing Spanish colonizers. Bir Lehlou is still in Polisario-held territory under the 1991 cease-fire and has remained a temporary capital of the exiled republic, until the Sahrawi capital of El-Aaiun, presently in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, can function as the capital of an independent Western Sahara. Day-to-day business is however conducted in the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria, which houses most of the Sahrawi exile community.
The refugee camps are part of the Sahrawi republic's system of government. Algeria does not intervene in their organization, treating the area as effectively under Sahrawi self-rule. Since the nineties a rudimentary monetary economy has evolved in the camps, after Spain started paying pensions to former recruited Sahrawi soldiers in its colonial army, and with money and merchandise brought in by Sahrawis working or studying abroad. A minor but significant addition comes from those pursuing traditional nomadic camel-herding in the Polisario Front-controlled parts of Western Sahara and in Mauritania. However, the development of a market economy - a stated goal of the Polisario - is hampered by the realities of refugee life. ()
)
