Oualata

Oualata or Walata (Arabic: ولاتة) (also Biru in 17th century chronicles)[2] is a small oasis town in southeast Mauritania, located at the eastern end of the Aoukar basin.

Oualata was important as a caravan city in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the southern terminus of a trans-Saharan trade route and now it is a World Heritage Site.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century Oualata replaced Aoudaghost as the principal southern terminus of the trans-Saharan trade and developed into an important commercial and religious centre.

[6] Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta found the inhabitants of Oualata were Muslim and mainly Massufa, a section of the Sanhaja.

He only gives a brief description of the town itself: "My stay at Iwalatan (Oualata) lasted about fifty days; and I was shown honour and entertained by its inhabitants.

[8] From the second half of the fourteenth century Timbuktu gradually replaced Oualata as the southern terminus of the trans-Sahara route and it declined in importance, becoming an increasingly poor backwater in comparison to the previous wealth of the town.

Trade routes of the Western Sahara Desert c. 1000–1500. Goldfields are indicated by light brown shading: Bambuk , Bure , Lobi , and Akan .