Mauritania

The story behind the answer

Nouakchott is the correct answer—it’s the capital and largest city of Mauritania, set on the Atlantic coast. The other options are incorrect variants: “Nouakchottien” is the French demonym for a resident, while “Nouakchotte” and “Noukchott” are misspellings.

Chosen as the capital around independence (1960), Nouakchott grew from a small village into one of the largest cities in the Sahara, swelled by drought-driven migration from the interior. A memory tip: the name ends with “-chott,” like “chott,” a North African term for a salt flat—think Sahara sands meeting the sea to recall Mauritania’s coastal capital, Nouakchott.