In the late 19th-century Western Sahara became a
Spanish colony. During the
Spanish province of Sahara, the only official flag was the flag of Spain, however, the maritime province of
Villa Cisneros, which corresponds to the current territory of Western Sahara, was assigned a cornet flag that consisted of two stripes, blue the upper and yellow the lower. Like other demarcations of Spain, such as Cantabria, which created their symbols taking as references the flags of their maritime provinces, the Saharawi National Union Party created its flag based on that of the Maritime Province of Villa Cisneros, until its entry into the Polisario Front in a meeting held on October 12, 1975, with the leadership of said movement. After the
Madrid Accords of 1975, Spain disengaged itself leaving the territory to Morocco and
Mauritania, who split the territory, giving two-thirds to the former. The
Polisario Front rejected this and declared in exile, the
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as the state representing an "independent" Western Sahara. In 1979, Mauritania signed a Peace Treaty with the Polisario Front, and Morocco annexed the part formerly controlled by Mauritania. An U.N.-brokered ceasefire was signed in 1991 between the two parties, but the sovereignty of the territory remains unresolved pending ongoing peace-talks. File:Flag of the Sahrawi National Union Party.svg| Flag of the
Sahrawi National Union Party (1974–1975) File:1959-2017 Flag of Mauritania.svg| The
flag of Mauritania was the official flag of
Tiris al-Gharbiyya, the part of Western Sahara annexed by
Mauritania (1976–1979)
Moroccan regional flags (1976–1997) In the 1976–1997
provincial division of Morocco, three provinces included parts of Western Sahara. The provinces were, however, reorganized in 1997. Consequently, some of these flags are no longer in official use. Flag of Laayoune province.svg| Flag of
Laayoune province. Flag of Boujdour province (1976-1997).svg| Flag of
Boujdour province. Flag of Dakhla province (1976-1997).svg| Flag of
Dakhla province. ==Unicode==