Tan-Tan: the gateway to the Moroccan Western Sahara

On the border between southern Morocco and Western Sahara, Tan-Tan hosts the famous Moussem every year, a traditional gathering of Saharan nomadic tribes.

A car remains necessary to explore the surrounding desert.

The Moussem of Tan-Tan, UNESCO heritage site, brings together dozens of Saharan nomadic tribes each year for camel races, music, and traditional trade of livestock and textiles.

Just minutes away, nearby Tan-Tan Plage on the Atlantic coast remains a tranquil beach rarely visited by international mass tourism.

Moving inland you observe traditional nomadic encampments where Saharan tribes still maintain a semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle today.

In the evening, Tan-Tan markets sell traditional Saharan carpets and silver jewelry from the region's tribal populations.

The Moussem of Tan-Tan, declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2005, brings together tens of thousands of participants each year from Saharan nomadic tribes of different countries in the region, including Mauritania and Algeria.

Tan-Tan remains one of the few places where Saharan nomadic traditions, including camel racing and tribal oral poetry, are still practiced publicly on a large scale, before a growing international audience at each edition.