Located in the North-Westof the country and covering an area of about 4600 square miles of both land and sea territories, the Banc d’Arguin National Park (BANP) was created in 1976 and is one the biggest parks in West Africa. Since 1989, it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The BANP is one of the largest migratory areas for migratory birds in the world. More than 2 million birds spend the winter alongside cormorants, egrets, flamingos and herons but they also meet many cetaceans (dolphins, whales, etc), selacians (rays and sharks) and mammals. Therefore, it is because it contains an exceptionally rich biodiversity in a magnificent visual environment that the BANP decided to adopt an ecotourism approach to make this heritage accessible to visitors.
You also can find proofs of a human presence dating back to the Neolithic period, and the succession of settlers between the 17th and 19th centuries allows visitors to admire some architectural buildings in the park.
The famous painting of Gericault The raft of the Méduse exposed at the Louvre Museum in Paris even represents the crew of a frigate who has come aground in the shallow waters of the Banc d’Arguin, where only 15 of the 147 occupants were found 13 days after the sinking.
The sand dunes of Azefal, the large expanses of Taziazt and Ouad Echabka, the Imragen villages along the coast but also the village of Agadir on the Arguin Island and the discovery of Canarian fishermen lanches (sailor boats because all the motor boats are prohibited in the park) will be as many key steps of your visit to the BANP.