Mali

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa bordered by Algeria, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Senegal, the eighth-largest country in Africa at 1,240,192 square kilometers, with a population of about 25.2 million and Bamako as its capital and largest city; French was the official language until 2022, when it was replaced by 13 African languages, Bambara being the majority first language. Mali's northern territory reaches into the Sahara while the more populous south lies in the Sudanian savanna along the Niger and Senegal rivers; the region was part of three successive West African trading empires, the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire and the Songhai Empire, with the Mali Empire at its 1300 peak the wealthiest country in Africa under Emperor Mansa Musa and Timbuktu a renowned center of Islamic learning, before the Songhai Empire absorbed Mali in 1468 and was itself defeated by a Saadian army in 1591. France seized the territory in the late nineteenth century as French Sudan; a brief federation with Senegal achieved independence in 1960, after which Senegal's withdrawal led to the Republic of Mali, which endured one-party rule until a 1991 coup brought multi-party democracy, later reversed after 2012 by four Tuareg rebellions, a 2012 armed conflict and secession attempt in the north, and military coups in 2012, 2020 and 2021 that installed Assimi Goita as military ruler; in 2025 all political parties were dissolved and Goita was granted a renewable five-year presidential term without elections, while the al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM has imposed blockades and launched offensives into 2026.