Why the country "Western Sahara" is not available on the Azure Maps ???

Question

Why the country "Western Sahara" is not available on the Azure Maps ???

Hussein Satour 1

I would like to show the Western Sahara on my report, but unfortunately, the visual Azure Maps does not recognise this country, despite it is a UN country.

Is the problem with the visual ?

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Answer 1

rbrundritt 20,921 Microsoft Employee Moderator

I'm not on the Azure Maps team, but I suspect the reason is that "Western Sahara" is a disputed territory, and thus, its visibility on the map would vary based on the maps view option setting which is used to modify how the map displays disputed items on the map (place names, borders...). Most code samples for Azure Maps set the view to Auto which will align the view based on the user's location in the world (based on IP address). So, if a user is within the "Western Sahara" area, they will most likely see it appear on the map. Alternative, I believe if you can set the view option to anything but MA (the Moroccan view) the label appears https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/supported-languages#azure-maps-supported-views Note that you might have to zoom in a bit closer since it isn't a country label, but an Admin District 1 label (it appears at zoom level 4).

rbrundritt 20,921 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2022-07-15T16:58:27.973+00:00

Also, the UN recognizes "Western Sahara" as a "Non-Self-Governing Territory", not a country: https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/nsgt/western-sahara
rbrundritt 20,921 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2022-07-15T17:07:31.357+00:00

Also, worth noting a word of caution. If you override the Auto setting, be careful showing the map outside of the region you manually specified for the view. Some countries have very serious consequences for those businesses or individuals who widely display maps that don't align with their regional views.
Hussein Satour 1 Reputation point

2022-07-18T13:18:36.583+00:00

Hi, thank you very much for your answers.

I reviewed the options of the map and found that only the new feature "Filled map" is not recognising the Western Sahara.
IoTGirl 3,696 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2022-07-19T16:38:58.74+00:00

This was reported to our provider Tomtom and I believe they have implemented a fix. Can you confirm?
Hussein Satour 1 Reputation point

2022-07-20T10:14:14.627+00:00

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

As you can see in the attached picture, the Western Sahara is still not recognised by the Azure Map.
When we use the filled map feature, the Western Sahara is recognised as Morocco !

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Why the country "Western Sahara" is not available on the Azure Maps ???

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