Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a country on the west coast of West Africa, bordered by Guinea to the north and Liberia to the southeast, covering 73,252 square kilometers. Freetown is its capital and largest city, and the population stood at 8,460,512 at the 2023 census, drawn from around 18 ethnic groups, predominantly Temne and Mende; Krio, spoken by 97 percent of citizens, serves as the lingua franca, alongside official English, and the population is about 78 percent Muslim and 21 percent Christian under a secular constitution that separates church and state. Britain established a colony at Freetown in 1808 to resettle freed Africans following the abolition of the slave trade, and created an inland protectorate in 1896; Sierra Leone gained independence on 27 April 1961, initially as a dominion, and became a republic under a new constitution in 1971. An eleven-year civil war from 1991 to 2002 between government forces and the Revolutionary United Front ended with international intervention. Sierra Leone is a presidential republic with a unicameral parliament and a directly elected president, and possesses significant natural resources including diamonds, gold, bauxite and aluminium.