Nouakchott (Arabic: نواكشوط‎ or انواكشوط‎ [alleged translation from Berber "The place of the winds"] Nawākšūṭ) is the capital and by far the largest city of Mauritania. It is the Sahara's largest city if one excludes marginal cases like Cairo (in the Nile River Delta) and the cities north of the Atlas Mountains on Africa's northern coast. The city is the administrative and economic centre of Mauritania.