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.