Chinguetti (/ʃɪŋˈɡɛti/ shing-GHET-ee; Arabic: شنقيط, romanized: Šinqīṭ) is a ksar and a medieval trading center in northern Mauritania, located on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar. Chinguetti had a population of 4,800 as of 2013.^[1]

Quick Facts شنقيط (Arabic)City of Libraries, Country ...

Chinguetti شنقيط (Arabic) City of Libraries
Old town, Chinguetti
Chinguetti Location in Mauritania
Coordinates: 20°27′N 12°21′W
Country	Mauritania
Region	Adrar Region
Department	Chinguetti
Area
• City	529.0 km2 (204.2 sq mi)
Population  (2013 census)
• City	4,800
• Urban	3,227
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata
Type	Cultural
Criteria	iii, iv, v
Designated	1996 (20th session)
Reference no.	750
Region	Arab States

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Founded in the 13th century as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, this small city continues to attract a handful of visitors who admire its spare architecture, scenery, and ancient libraries. The city is seriously threatened by the encroaching desert; high sand dunes mark the western boundary and several houses have been abandoned to the sand.

The town is split in two by a wadi. On one side, there is the old sector, and on the other the new one. The indigenous Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city features houses constructed of reddish dry-stone and mud-brick techniques, with flat roofs timbered from palms. Many of the older houses feature hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia trees, which have long disappeared from the surrounding area. Many homes include courtyards or patios that crowd along narrow streets leading to the central mosque.

Occupied for thousands of years, the Chinguetti region was once a broad savannah; rock paintings at Agrour Amogjar, in the nearby Amogjar Pass, feature images of giraffes, cows, and people in a green landscape. It is quite different from the sand dunes of the surrounding desert, which make up most of the region today.^[2]

For centuries, the city was a principal gathering place for pilgrims of the Maghreb to gather, on their way to Mecca. It became known as a holy city in its own right, especially for pilgrims unable to make the long journey to the Arab Peninsula. It also became a center of Islamic religious and scientific scholarship in West Africa.^[5] In addition to religious training, the schools of Chinguetti taught students rhetoric, law, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. For many centuries, all of Mauritania was commonly known in the Arab world as Bilad Shinqit, "the land of Chinguetti." It is sometimes said to be the seventh-most holy city of Islam,^[6][7] The city remains one of the world's most important historical sites both in terms of the history of Islam and the history of West Africa.

Although largely abandoned to the desert, the city features a series of medieval manuscript libraries without peer in West Africa. The area around the Rue des Savants (or “street of intelligent ones”) was once famous as a gathering place for scholars, and as a place to debate the finer points of Islamic law. Today, the quiet city still offers the urban and religious architecture of the Moorish empire as it existed in the Middle Ages.^[8]

In 2021 Chinguetti was featured in a BBC documentary Life at 50 degrees C, which looked at ordinary people living in increasingly inhospitable areas.^[9]

• The Great "Friday Mosque"
• Inside a Qur'anic Library
• New town architecture of Chinguetti

• Ahmad ibn al-Amin al-Shinqiti (1863–1913), who was born and lived here, is one of Mauritania's most famous writers.
• Muhammad al-Amin al-Shinqiti (1887–1973), an Islamic scholar.

• Chinguetti oil field, Mauritania's first offshore oil field
• Greater Mauritania, (بلاد شنقيط; Bilād Šinqīṭ; Bilad Chinguetti)
• The Chinguetti meteorite is a find reputed to come from a large unconfirmed “iron mountain”, located in the nearby of the town.
• Decomantry film MAURITANIA - Ouadane to Chinguetti
• Decomantry film The FORTIFIED town of Chinguetti | SLICE