The
Southern Provinces or
Moroccan Sahara are the terms used by the
Moroccan government for
Western Sahara. These two official Moroccan denominations explicitly include all of Western Sahara. The Moroccan government favours "Southern Provinces" for its geographical obviousness, and because of the sensitivity of the word "Sahara" in Morocco. A frequent use of the term "Southern Provinces" is found for example in Moroccan state TV (weather forecasts, displayed maps on the news, government statements, etc...).