Mali (country)

I

Introduction

Mali (country), landlocked country in northwestern Africa. Desert covers much of Mali, and the country is thinly populated. The southern part of the country is well watered by the Niger River, and most of Mali’s people live in valleys along the Niger or the Sénégal rivers. The people in this largely rural country live primarily by farming and fishing. Drought is a recurrent problem, often bringing famine with it. The largest city is Bamako, Mali’s capital, which has about 1 million people.

Although Bamako is the capital, the town of Tombouctou, or Timbuktu, is far more famous. Founded in the 11th century, this trading post on the southern edge of the Sahara was celebrated for centuries for its splendor. Camel caravans, carrying gold and ivory, passed through it. So did slaves. Tombouctou linked the rest of West Africa with the Mediterranean Sea to the north. In time, to Westerners it came to stand for all that was remote, mysterious, and unimaginable.

From the 5th century through the 19th century, Mali was the core of a series of West African empires that sought control of Tombouctou’s lucrative caravan routes and the gold to its south. In the late 19th century Mali became a colony of France. Under French rule the territory was known as the French Sudan. In 1960 Mali gained independence, taking the name of one of the medieval empires that had formed in the region. Mali has struggled economically since independence. In 2007 the United Nations Development Program ranked Mali 175th out of 178 countries on the human development index, a measure of poverty, literacy, life expectancy, and other criteria of a nation’s well-being. The World Bank had previously classified Mali as one of the poorest countries in the world.

French remains the official language of Mali, and Islam is by far the major religion. However, the people of Mali belong to a number of ethnic groups and speak a variety of African languages.

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II

Land and Resources

Most of Mali consists of low plains broken occasionally by rocky hills. The country has three natural regions. The southern region is a tropical grassland, or savanna, with occasional scattered trees. The central region is a semiarid belt known as the Sahel. The vegetation here consists of thorny plants and shrubs. The northern region lies within the Sahara, a vast desert that extends over northern Africa.

Mali has two major rivers, the Niger and the Sénégal. Both of them flow through the southern part of the country. The Niger turns east in the Sahel and cuts a large arc through the region. Between the town of Mopti, where the Bani River flows into the Niger, and the city of Tombouktou is a large inland delta with river channels and many lakes. The Sénégal and its tributaries flow northward in the extreme west of Mali. High ground is found in the southwest, where sandstone plateaus ring the plains of the Niger and Bani river basins.

In the southeast are the Hombori Mountains, the highest peaks in Mali. Hombori Tondo, the highest point, rises to 1,155 m (3,789 ft) above sea level. The Bambouk and Mandingue mountains are in the southwest.

Mali is bounded by Algeria on the north; by Niger on the east; by Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea on the south; and by Senegal and Mauritania on the west. The area of the country is 1,240,192 sq km (478,841 sq mi), making it the largest country in West Africa.

A

Climate

The climate of the parts of Mali not in the Sahara is hot and dry with average temperatures ranging from about 24° to 32°C (about 75° to 90°F) in the south. Temperatures are higher in the north. The hottest weather comes just before the rainy season of June to September. Annual rainfall declines from about 1,400 mm (about 55 in) in the south to some 1,120 mm (some 44 in) at Bamako and less than 127 mm (5 in) in the Sahara of the north. Periodic droughts cause considerable hardship in this largely agricultural country. Because of the short rainy season, water shortage is a major problem.

B

Natural Resources

Mali is a predominantly agricultural country. The country’s most valuable resource is the Niger River, which abounds in fish; its waters are used for irrigation. Mali’s mineral resources include gold, salt, phosphate rock, iron ore, diamonds, and uranium. Gold is the most important mineral being mined.