[Facts]About Mauritania

Here are some key facts about Mauritania:

GEOGRAPHY: Most of Mauritania is desert. At 1,025,220 sq km (395,800 sq miles), it is almost twice as big as former colonial power France, but has little more than 800 km (500 miles) of paved roads.

POPULATION: Almost all Mauritania's 3.1 million people are Muslim. Moors of Arab-Berber origin form about 70 percent of the population. Most black African inhabitants are from the Fulani and Soninke ethnic groups.

LANGUAGE: Arabic and French are the official languages. Mauritania's Moors speak Bassanya, an Arab dialect; Fulani and Sarakole are also spoken in the south.

RELIGION: Mauritania is officially an Islamic republic with Islam being the predominant religion (99.5 percent Sunni).

POLITICS: President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi took office in 2007 after winning elections marking the return of civilian rule to the West Saharan Islamic state. He was overthrown in a bloodless coup on Aug. 6 by dismissed military officer Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz.

ECONOMY: Main products are fish, livestock and iron ore, although offshore oil reserves promise to revolutionize the economy. The Saharan state's economic growth slowed to 0.9 percent in 2007 due to a sharp fall in output from the fledgling oil sector while the non-oil economy performed well, growing 5.7 percent.

Natural resources

Several companies producing or exploring for oil, gas, gold or other resources in Mauritania have said their operations were unaffected by the Aug. 6 coup.

*OIL: Mauritania began producing crude oil in February 2006, forecasting output of 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the offshore Chinguetti field first opened by Australia's Woodside and now operated by Malaysia's Petronas. Difficulties extracting oil have resulted in Chinguetti's output falling below 15,000 bpd, but other firms are prospecting in the country. Since 2000, over 30 exploration, appraisal and development wells have been drilled.

* GAS: In June, RWE Dea, the upstream arm of German utility group RWE bought a 30 percent interest from operator Repsol YPF in onshore blocks in the Taoudeni Basin, which is expected to contain a high potential for gas.

* IRON ORE: Iron ore miner Societe Nationale Industrielle et Miniere (SNIM), 78-percent owned by the state, produced 11.8 million tons of ore in 2007 and posted record sales of $557 million, thanks in large part to strong Chinese demand. ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel maker, signed a deal in January with SNIM to develop the El Agareb iron ore mining project. Separately, Qatari state-owned Industries Qatar paid $375 million last November to take a 49.9 percent stake in the al-Qalb al-Og project (sometimes transcribed from Arabic as Guelb El Aouj) in northern Mauritania, due to begin production in 2010. It is developing the project with SNIM and Australian-listed Sphere Investments. Tazadit 1, a third SNIM joint venture, with China's state-owned Minmetals, expects production of 2.5 million tons by 2010.

* COPPER: First Quantum - forecast 2008 production of 33,000 tons of copper from its Guelb Moghrein mine, up 14.8 percent on 2007. The mine also produces gold.

* GOLD: Red Back Mining operates the Tasiast gold mine, which it expects to produce 110,000 oz in 2008, at operating costs or around $370/oz. Other firms are prospecting for gold, including Shield Mining.

* URANIUM: Alba Mineral Resources has said it had found deposits of uranium on a prospecting concession. Shield Mining also holds uranium licenses. Murchison, has several uranium licenses.

* DIAMONDS: Rio Tinto is exploring for diamonds.