La Aguera

La Aguera was the name of a short-lived Spanish colonial administration located on the Atlantic coast at the southern tip of present-day Western Sahara. The site is now called Lagouira or La Gouera, and is the subject of dispute between Morocco and Mauritania.

La Aguera came into existence in 1920, when Spain established an air base on the western side of the Ras Nouadhibou (Cape Blanco) peninsula, just a few miles away from the French Fort Etienne (now Nouadhibou) on the eastern side of the same peninsula. (In the 1912 Convention of Madrid, Spain and France had agreed on a border between Mauritania and Spanish possessions that ran down the middle of the peninsula.)

In June 1920, Spain issued postage stamps of its existing colony Rio de Oro overprinted "LA AGÜERA", and followed those up in 1922 with a series portraying King Alfonso XIII and inscribed "SAHARA OCCIDENTAL / LA AGUERA". These were superseded in 1924 by stamps of Spanish Sahara. The stamps of La Aguera are not rare, typically costing about one US$ either used or unused, but because of the small population (probably less than 1,000 persons) and short period of validity, non-philatelic uses on cover are likely to be hard to find.