The Saudi Grand Mosque — officially the Nouakchott Grand Mosque — is the most prominent building in the capital's low skyline, its white minaret visible from much of the central city. Built with Saudi funding in the 1980s, it can hold several thousand worshippers and is the focal point of the city's religious life.
Non-Muslim visitors are not admitted to the interior during prayer times, but the exterior is worth seeing, and the surrounding streets fill dramatically at Friday prayers. The architecture is functional Saudi-sponsored modernism rather than traditional Mauritanian style, but it is the nearest thing Nouakchott has to a landmark monument.