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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Ayoun el Atrous

city in Mauritania

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ175596 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ayoun al Atrous (also known as Aioun el Atrouss) (Arabic: عيون العتروس) is a town in southern Mauritania. It is located at around 16°40′0″N 9°37′0″W. It is the capital of Hodh El Gharbi region.

The city is served by the Aioun el Atrouss Airport, 6 kilometres (4 mi) north-west of the city. The town is located in the southern area of the Aoukar, a former lake basin.

Ayoun al Atrous was one of the stops in the 2007 Dakar Rally.

Editorial summary

“Ayoun el Atrous” enters the record as city in Mauritania. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ayoun, Atrous and city can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2007—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Ayoun, Atrous and city.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Ayoun el Atrous” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ayoun, Atrous and city provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q175596. VIAF identifies the subject as 6493152381792501950001. Authority coordinates are 16.663, -9.603. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007.

Critical limits

Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ayoun el Atrous”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ayoun el Atrous primary sources, Ayoun el Atrous archive and Ayoun research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ayoun el Atrous”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ayoun el Atrous” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.