El-Aaiún or Laâyoune is the main city of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony now mostly administred by Morocco. It is the capital of the Laâyoune-Boujdour-Sakia El Hamra region. The city has a population of
188,084 and is the largest city in Western Sahara. It is a growing economical pole in what Morocco sees as its Southern Provinces. Its population is a mixture of Moroccans from the North as well as Sahrawis from Southern Saharan Morocco and natives of Western Sahara.
In the spring of 2005 Sahrawi demonstrations and riots demanding the release of common law and political prisoners took part in some parts of the city, and a trend towards opening up the closed territory seems to have been broken off, with several expulsions of foreign journalists and human rights delegations, accused by the Moroccan authorities of serving as a pretext for the pro-independence activists to step up riots. In the area south of Tindouf, Algeria, there is a Sahrawi refugee camp named El-Aaiun, after this city.
