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Hodh Ech Chargui is Mauritania's largest and most remote region, a vast expanse of eastern Sahara and Sahel bordering Mali. It contains the fabled caravan town of Oualata, famed for the geometric ochre-and-white patterns painted on its houses, once a major trans-Saharan trading post and centre of learning. Beyond the towns, the region is one of open plains, scattered wells and nomadic herding routes stretching toward the Malian border. Security considerations have made much of this region difficult or inadvisable to visit in recent years, and travel here requires careful, up-to-date guidance rather than assumptions from older guidebooks. When accessible, Oualata's painted architecture and manuscript collections remain one of Mauritania's most striking, least-visited cultural sites.
- Oualata's painted ochre-and-white architecture
- Manuscript collections in Oualata
- Vast eastern Saharan-Sahelian plains
- Nomadic herding routes toward the Mali border