Southern region, Western Sahara .
Its principal town, Al-Dakhla (formerly Villa Cisneros), has a small port and must rely on imported drinking water. The narrow inlet of the Atlantic Ocean at Al-Dakhla was called Río de Oro ("River of Gold") by the Portuguese because of the trade in gold dust from western Africa that they engaged in there. From the 1880s until 1976 it was ruled by Spain. In 1979 it was occupied by Morocco. The indigenous inhabitants are Muslim and largely nomadic Berbers .