The demographics of Western Sahara are in the frame work of the demographics of Morocco since the territory is de facto occupied by the kingdom of Morocco. The population of Western Sahara is pre-dominantly Moroccan. The indigeous Sahrawis are a minority in Western Sahara, due to the 1976 Sahrawi exodus and the continuous settlement of Moroccans.[1]
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The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.
The Arabic language in its standard variety is the official language in the entire territory. However, the Hassaniya variety is the most spoken native language. Spanish, the former colonial language and French, the second language of Morocco and most of western Africa are both extensively used as second languages.[2]
Sunni Islam is the major religion in Western Sahara. Sunni Muslims constitute about 99.9% of the population.
Noun: Western Saharan(s)
adjective: Western Saharan
405,210 (July 2010 est.)
0–14 years: 44.9% (male 92,418/female 89,570)
15–64 years: 53.8% (male 105,191/female 108,803)
65 years and over: 2.3% (male 3,881/female 5,337) (2010 est.)
3.097% (2011 est.)
39.54 births/1,000 population (2010 est.)
11.49 deaths/1,000 population (2010 est.)
-6.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2000 est.)
69.66 deaths/1,000 live births (2010 est.)
total population: 54.32 years
male: 52 years
female: 56.73 years (2010 est.)
4.3 children born/woman (2011 est.)
definition: NA
total population: NA%
male: NA%
female: NA%
Modern Standard Arabic is the official language of Western Sahara and Morocco. Both Moroccan Arabic and Hassaniya Arabic are used in Western Sahara. Hassaniya, primarily spoken at home, is dominated by the Moroccan dialect spoken in the streets, workplace, and schools. This is because the great majority of the population consists of Moroccans who settled in Western Sahara.
Spanish is common among Sahrawi people and especially among the Sahrawi diaspora, with the Sahrawi Press Service, official news service of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, being available in Spanish since 2001[3] and the Sahara Film Festival, Western Sahara's only film festival, showing mainly Spanish-language films. Spanish is used to document Sahrawi poetry and oral traditions and has also be used in Sahrawi literature.[4] Despite Spanish having been used by the Sahrawi people for over a century due to Western Sahara's history as a former Spanish colony, the Cervantes Institute has denied support and Spanish-language education to Sahrawis in Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria.[5] A group of Sahrawi poets known as 'Generación de la Amistad saharaui' produce Sahrawi literature in Spanish.[6]
The events triggered by the Moroccan and Mauritanian joint invasion of Western Sahara at the end of 1975 are directly linked to the large displacement of the Saharawi population, most of whom live as refugees in south-west Algeria. The major bulk of Saharawis became refugees during the war between the Polisario Front and Morocco. The south-western desert region near Tindouf offered a potential safe region. Algeria ,in its rivalry with Morocco, offered the Sahrawis a safe place to settle and actively supported the guerilla-movement of the POLISARIO.
The next Saharawi exodus, although on a smaller scale, took place in 1979 when Mauritania withdrew from the conflict and Morocco annexed the rest of Western Sahara. Exact figures cannot be provided for the numbers that fled the territory in those two waves, but the estimations are between 1/3 and 2/3 of the total population at that time. The current size of the population in the refugee camps is believed to be around 165,000.
Used by the Algerian government, this figure is the most widely quoted by NGOs and is also used by the UNHCR and the World Food Programme to raise funds for food aid to the refugees. In the 2004 WFP meeting in Rome, the number of refugees was officially recognized at 158,000.[1]
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