Laayoune in the context of "Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic"

The Ifni War, sometimes called the Forgotten War (la Guerra Olvidada) in Spain, was a series of armed incursions into Spanish West Africa by Moroccan insurgents that began in November 1957 and culminated with the abortive siege of Sidi Ifni.

The city of Sidi Ifni had been ceded to the Spanish Empire in 1860 at the end of the Hispano-Moroccan War. After Morocco achieved independence in 1956, it sought to claim Spain's remaining possessions in West Africa. Violent demonstrations against Spanish rule broke out in Ifni in April 1957, and in October Moroccan militias began converging near the territory. Moroccan forces attacked in November, forcing the Spanish to abandon most of the territory and retreat to a defensive perimeter around Ifni. Supplied by the Spanish Navy from the sea, the Spanish garrison was able to resist the siege, which lasted into June 1958. In Spanish Sahara, Moroccan units, now reorganised as the Moroccan Army of Liberation, engaged in heavy fighting with Spanish forces at El Aaiún and Edchera. By February 1958, a joint Spanish and French offensive had driven the Moroccans out of Spanish Sahara.

Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra (Arabic: العيون - الساقية الحمراء, romanized: al-ʿuyūn as-sāqiya l-ḥamrāʾ) is one of the twelve administrative regions of Morocco. It is mainly located in the disputed territory of Western Sahara: the western part of the region is occupied by Morocco and the eastern part is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The region as claimed by Morocco covers an area of 140,018 square kilometres (54,061 sq mi) and had a population of 451,028 as of the 2024 Moroccan census. The capital of the region is Laâyoune.

Tarfaya (Arabic: طرفاية - Ṭarfāya; Berber languages: ⵟⵔⴼⴰⵢⴰ) is a coastal Moroccan town, located at the level of Cape Juby, in western Morocco, on the Atlantic coast. It is located about 890 km southwest of the capital Rabat, and around 100 km from both Laayoune and Lanzarote, in the far east of the Canary Islands. During the colonial era, Tarfaya was a Spanish colony known as Villa Bens. It was unified with Morocco in 1958 after the Ifni War, which started one year after the independence of other regions of Morocco.

Tarfaya is the capital and main town in the Tarfaya Province, and counts a population of 8,027 inhabitants according to the 2014 census. Although founded in the twentieth century, the city has a big historical symbolic in the Moroccan history, dating back to the era of the Green March in November 1975.

Dakhla (Arabic: الداخلة, lit. 'The Peninsula', Hassaniyya: [ˌəd.daːχlə] ; formerly known as Villa Cisneros) is a city in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, currently occupied by Morocco. It is the capital of the claimed Moroccan administrative region Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab. It has a population of 106,277 and is on a narrow peninsula of the Atlantic Coast, the Río de Oro Peninsula, about 550 km (340 mi) south of Laayoune.

The Treaty between France and Spain regarding Morocco was signed on 27 November 1912 by French and Spanish heads of state, establishing de jure a Spanish Zone of influence in northern and southern Morocco, both zones being de facto under Spanish control, while France was still regarded as the protecting power as it was the sole occupying power to sign the Treaty of Fes.

The northern part was to become the zone of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco with its capital in Tetuan, while the southern part was ruled from El Aiun as a buffer zone between the Spanish Colony of Rio de Oro and French Morocco.