Spanish West Africa (Africa Occidental Española) is a former posession in the western Sahara Desert that Spain ruled after giving much of its former northwestern African possesions to Morocco. As a political entity, it included Ifni, on the western coast of Morocco, the Tarfaya Strip, at its southern border, and a stretch of land including and connecting the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The area between the two cities belongs under Moroccan sovereignty today, but the ports themselves are dependencies of Spain. Spain also controlled Spanish Sahara (now known as Western Sahara) and the Canary Islands, off the coast, comprise two Spanish provinces.