Tindouf in the context of "Tindouf Province"

Western Sahara is a non-self-governing territory in North-western Africa undergoing decolonization. It has a surface area of 272,000 square kilometres (105,000 sq mi). Western Sahara is the last African colonial state yet to achieve independence and has been dubbed "Africa's last colony". With an estimated population of around 600,000 inhabitants, it is the most sparsely populated territory in Africa and the second most sparsely populated territory in the world, consisting mainly of desert flatlands.

Spain previously colonized the territory as the Spanish Sahara until 1976, when it attempted to transfer its administration to Morocco and Mauritania while ignoring an International Court of Justice's verdict that those countries had no sovereignty over Western Sahara. A war erupted and the Polisario Front—a national liberation movement recognized by the United Nations as the legitimate representative of the people of Western Sahara—proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) with a government-in-exile in Tindouf, Algeria. Mauritania withdrew its claims in 1979, and Morocco secured de facto control of most of the territory, including all major cities and most natural resources. A UN-sponsored ceasefire agreement was reached in 1991, though a planned referendum monitored by the UN's MINURSO mission has since stalled.

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), also known as the Sahrawi Republic and Western Sahara, is a partially recognized state in the western Maghreb, which claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, but controls only the easternmost one-fifth of that territory. It is recognized by 44 UN member states and South Ossetia. Between 1884 and 1975, Western Sahara was known as Spanish Sahara, a Spanish colony (later an overseas province). The SADR is one of the two African states in which Spanish is a significant language, the other being Equatorial Guinea.

The SADR was proclaimed by the Polisario Front on 27 February 1976, in Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara. The SADR government calls the territories under its control the Liberated Territories or the Free Zone. Morocco occupies the rest of the disputed territory, and calls these lands its Southern Provinces. The claimed capital city of the SADR is Laayoune (the largest city of the Western Sahara territory). Since the SADR does not control Laayoune, it has established a temporary capital in Tifariti, although most of the day-to-day administration happens in Rabuni, one of the Sahrawi refugee camps located in Tindouf, Algeria.

The people of Western Sahara speak the Ḥassānīya dialect of Arabic, also spoken in northern Mauritania, and Spanish. They are of mixed Arab, African (including Berber descent), many consider themselves to be Arab. Most claim that they descend from the tribe called Beni Hassan, an Arab tribe, who immigrated to the Western Saharan desert in the 14th century. The Sahrawis are Sunni Muslim and follow the Maliki law school. Their interpretation of Islam has traditionally being quite liberal and adapted to nomad life (i.e. generally functioning without mosques).

The clan- and tribe-based society underwent a massive social upheaval in 1975, when a large portion of the population fled fighting in the country and settled in the refugee camps of Tindouf, Algeria, breaking up families and clans. The Polisario Front, which runs the camps, has attempted to modernize their society, placing a public emphasis on education, the eradication of tribalism and the emancipation of women. The role of women in camps was enhanced by their shouldering of the main responsibility for the camps and government bureaucracy during the war years, as virtually the entire male population was enrolled in the Polisario army.

Commandant Ferradj Airport is an airport in Tindouf, Algeria (IATA: TIN, ICAO: DAOF).

Âouinet Bel Egrâ (also known as Aouinet Bélagraa) is a village in the commune of Tindouf, in Tindouf Province, Algeria. It is in the Sahara Desert, approximately 160 kilometres south-east of Tindouf. There is a Saharawi Refugee camp in the village named Dakhla.

The Algerian Land Forces (Arabic: القوات البرية الجزائرية, lit. 'Algerian Land Forces', French: Forces Terrestres Algériennes) are the land forces of the Algerian People's National Army. The forces' equipment is mostly supplied by Russia and China.

The forces include two armoured and two mechanised divisions, one of which is the 8th Armoured Division based at Ras El Ma, 90 kilometres from Sidi Bel Abbes, in the 2nd Military Region. The division was formed from the 8th Armoured Brigade after 1988 (the 8th Armoured Brigade seems to have been formed in 1976). The other armoured division was named by IISS 2017 as the 1st. Another is the 40th Mechanised Infantry Division apparently based in the 3rd Military Region. The mission of the 40th Division is usually the protection of the Algerian-Moroccan frontier. The IISS Military Balance 2013 named the other mechanised division as the 12th. There may be a single independent armoured brigade, the 41st Armoured Brigade in the In Amenas area, and the IISS said in 2020 that the 38th Motorised Brigade was located at Tindouf.