Nouadhibou, Mauritania

Nouadhibou, Mauritania: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Nouadhibou is the second largest city in Mauritania, situated on the Ras Nouadhibou peninsula on the country's Atlantic coastline, close to the border with Western Sahara. The city serves as one of two submarine cable landing points in Mauritania, with one international submarine cable coming ashore here. That cable, EllaLink, connects Nouadhibou to an intercontinental corridor spanning both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, linking West Africa and North Africa to South America and Europe.

The presence of EllaLink positions Nouadhibou within a transatlantic routing network that extends from Brazil and French Guiana on the South American coast, across the Atlantic to Portugal, with additional branching points at Cape Verde and Morocco along the route. This makes Nouadhibou a node on one of the more geographically broad submarine cable systems currently in service, one that crosses multiple ocean basins and connects four distinct world regions.

Cables Landing at Nouadhibou

EllaLink is a submarine cable system measuring 6,200 kilometres in length, which entered service in 2021. In addition to Nouadhibou, EllaLink lands in Brazil, French Guiana, Cape Verde, Morocco, and Portugal. The cable thus provides Nouadhibou with direct submarine connectivity to South America via Brazil and French Guiana, to Southern Europe via Portugal, to North Africa via Morocco, and to the mid-Atlantic island nation of Cape Verde. EllaLink represents Nouadhibou's sole submarine cable connection.

Regional Context

Mauritania has two submarine cable landing points in total: Nouadhibou and the capital Nouakchott, each hosting one cable. Across both landing points, Mauritania's submarine cable infrastructure comprises two systems in all. Nouadhibou and Nouakchott therefore share the country's international submarine cable connectivity equally in terms of cable count, with each city serving as the terminus for one distinct international system.

Network Role

Nouadhibou functions as a single-cable landing point, serving as an Atlantic-facing terminus on the EllaLink system. Through this connection, the city participates in a corridor that spans from South America's northeastern coast, across the central and eastern Atlantic, through West African island and mainland stops, and onward to the Iberian Peninsula. The cable's 2021 ready-for-service date makes Nouadhibou's submarine connectivity relatively recent within the regional timeline, given that Mauritania's first submarine cable landed in 2012.

Within the broader submarine cable graph of West and Northwest Africa, Nouadhibou's role is defined by EllaLink's transatlantic reach, connecting the Mauritanian coast directly to both South American and European endpoints. This places Nouadhibou on a long-haul international route that few other landing points along this stretch of the African Atlantic coastline share.