Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa and the 23rd largest country in the world, with an area of . It is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east by Niger, to the northwest by Mauritania, to the south by Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, and to the west by Guinea and Senegal. The population is about 25.20 million, 47.19% of which are estimated to be under age 15 in 2024. Its capital and largest city is Bamako. French was the official language until 2022, when it was replaced by 13 African languages, with Bambara being the first language of the majority of the population.
Mali's northern borders reach deep into the middle of the Sahara Desert. Southern Mali, where the majority of inhabitants live, is in the Sudanian savanna and has the Niger and Senegal rivers running through it. The economy centres on agriculture and mining with its most prominent natural resources including gold (which represents 80% of its exports) and cotton. Mali is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.
Mali was part of three successive powerful and wealthy West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, and the Songhai Empire. At its peak in 1300, the Mali Empire was the wealthiest country in Africa with Emperor Mansa Musa believed to be one of the wealthiest individuals in history.Mali Empire (ca. 1200-) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed . The Black Past. Retrieved 8 October 2012. Besides being a hub of trade and mining, medieval Mali was a centre of Islam, culture and knowledge, with Timbuktu becoming a renowned place of education. The Songhai Empire absorbed the Mali Empire in 1468, followed by a Saadian army which defeated the Songhai in 1591.
In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for Africa, France seized control of Mali, making it a part of French Sudan; as the Sudanese Republic, a brief federation with Senegal was formed, achieving independence in 1960. After Senegal's withdrawal, the Republic of Mali was established. After a long period of one-party rule, a coup in 1991 led to a new constitution and the establishment of Mali as a democratic, multi-party state. From this, Mali experienced economic growth and increased civil liberties, though this began to reverse after 2012. Since independence, there have been four rebellions involving Tuareg people, which occurred from 1962 to 1964, 1990 to 1995, 2007 to 2009, and since 2012.
In January 2012, an armed conflict broke out in northern Mali, in which Tuareg rebels took control of territory in the north, and in April declared the secession of a new state, Azawad.Polgreen, Lydia and Cowell, Alan (6 April 2012) "Mali Rebels Proclaim Independent State in North" , The New York Times The conflict was complicated by a military coup in March 2012UN Security Council condemns Mali coup . Telegraph (23 March 2012). Retrieved 24 March 2013. and later fighting between Tuareg and other rebel factions. In response to territorial gains, the French military launched Operation Serval in January 2013. A month later, Malian and French forces partially recaptured the north, though the conflict continued.
Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was elected president in 2013, but allegations of fraud during the 2020 parliamentary election led to mass protests. Keïta was removed in a coup led by Assimi Goïta, who established himself as military ruler of Mali after another coup in 2021. In 2025, all political parties were dissolved, and Goïta was granted a five-year presidential term, renewable without elections. The al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM imposed a fuel blockade on major cities, causing economic disruption and in 2026 launched a joint offensive with Tuareg separatists.
Etymology
The name Mali is taken from the name of the Mali Empire. Originally meaning "hippopotamus", the clanic symbol of the Keita Dynasty, it eventually came to mean "the place where the king lives". Fourteenth-century Maghrebi traveller Ibn Battuta reported that the capital of the empire was called Mali.Niane, Djibril (1965). Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali. One Mandinka tradition tells that the legendary first emperor Sundiata Keita changed himself into a hippopotamus upon his death in the Sankarani River and that it was possible to find villages in the area of this river called "old Mali". A study of Malian proverbs notes that in old Mali, there is a village called Malikoma, which means "New Mali", and that Mali could have formerly been the name of a city.
Another theory suggests that Mali is a Fulani pronunciation of the name of the Mande peoples. It is suggested that a sound shift led to the change, whereby in Fulani the alveolar segment shifts to and the terminal vowel denasalizes and raises, leading "Manden" to shift to .
History
Prehistory
Rock art in the Sahara suggests that northern Mali has been inhabited since 10,000 BC, when the Sahara was fertile and rich in wildlife. Early ceramics have been discovered at the central Malian site of Ounjougou dating to about 9,400 BC, and are believed to represent an instance of the independent invention of pottery in the region.Eric Huysecom, M. Rasse, L. Lespez, K. Neumann, A. Fahmy, A. Ballouche, S. Ozainne, M. Maggetti, Ch. Tribolo, S. Sorian: The emergence of pottery in Africa during the tenth millennium cal BC: new evidence from Ounjougou (Mali), in: Antiquity (2009), p. 906. Farming took place by 5000 BC, and iron was used by around 500 BC. In the first millennium BC, early cities and towns were created by Mandé peoples related to the Soninke people, along the middle Niger River, including Dia which began from around 900 BC, and reached its peak around 600 BC, and Djenné-Djenno, which lasted from around 300 BC to 900 AD. Through approximately 6th century BC and 4th century BC, the lucrative trans-Saharan trade in pack animals, gold, salt and slaves had begun, facilitating the rise of West Africa's great empires.
Rise of Islam There are a few references to Mali in early Islamic literature. Among these are references to "Pene" and "Malal" in the work of al-Bakri in 1068,al-Bakri in Nehemiah Levtzion and J. F. Pl Hopkins, eds and trans., Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 1981, reprint edn Princeton, New Jersey,: Marcus Wiener, 2000), pp. 82–83. the story of the conversion of an early ruler, known to Ibn Khaldun (by 1397) as Barmandana,ibn Khaldun in Levtzion and Hopkins, eds, and transl. Corpus, p. 333. and a few geographical details in the work of al-Idrisi.al-Idrisi in Levtzion and Hopkins, eds. and transl, Corpus, p. 108.
The have Keita dynasty have been claimed to have claimed descent from a man called "Lawalo", whom Niane claim was one of the sons of Bilal, the faithful muezzin of Islam's prophet Muhammad.Niane, D. T. (1995). Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali. Longman. The original epos, however, tends to portray Sundiata as a powerful sorcerer and hunter, rather than a devout Muslim.Fage, J. D, The Cambridge History of Africa: From c. 1050 to c. 1600 (editors: J. D. Fage, Roland Anthony Oliver), p. 390, Cambridge_University_Press, 1977, Religious life in the Mali Empire was divided between animist and Islamic belief systems, but the boundary was blurry and porous, if existent at all.Badru, Pade, The Spread of Islam in West Africa: colonization, globalization, and the emergence of fundamentalism, pp. 100-102, Edwin Mellen Press, 2006, The northern parts of the empire towards Sahara desert tended to be more Islamicised, while traditional African religion dominated in the south.
Mali was once part of three famed West African empires which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, other precious commodities, and slaves majorly during the 14th century reign of Mansa Musa.Mali country profile, p. 1. These Sahelian kingdoms had neither rigid geopolitical boundaries nor rigid ethnic identities. The earliest of these empires was the Ghana Empire, which was dominated by the Soninke, a Mande-speaking people. The empire expanded throughout West Africa from the 8th century until 1078, when it was conquered by the Almoravids.Mali country profile. Mali was later responsible for the collapse of Islamic Slave Army from the North. The defeat of Tukuror Slave Army, was repeated by Mali against the France and Spanish Expeditionary Army in the 1800s ("Blanc et memoires"). p. 2.
The Battle of Kirina in 1235 culminated in a victory for the Mandinka under the command of the exiled prince Sundiata Keita, which led to the downfall of the Sosso Empire.
Mali Empire The Mali Empire formed on the upper Niger River and reached its height of power in the 14th century. Following the death of Sundiata Keita, in , the kings or emperors of Mali were referred to by the title mansa. Largely due to its decentralised nature, the empire covered a larger area for a longer period of time than any other West African state before or since. Joseph Ki-Zerbo states that the farther from the capital, the more decentralised the mansa's power became.
Djenné and Timbuktu were centers of both trade and Islamic learning. In the late 14th century, the Songhai gradually gained independence from the Mali Empire and expanded, ultimately subsuming the entire eastern portion of the Mali Empire. The Songhai Empire's eventual collapse was largely the result of the Moroccan invasion of 1591 under the command of Judar Pasha. The fall of the Songhai Empire marked the end of the region's role as a trading crossroads. Following the establishment of sea routes by the European powers, the trans-Saharan trade routes lost significance. At that time, the Mali Empire's abundance in wealth expanded its commercial assets of salt and gold. Most of the empire consisted of autonomous kingdoms of communities who recognised the Mansa's ultimate authority and paid tribute. Leo Africanus made note of their professors and regarded Malians as "the most civilised, most intelligent, and most highly regarded of the blacks."
Some of the worst famines in the region's recorded history occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to John Iliffe, "The worst crises were in the 1680s, when famine extended from the Senegambian coast to the Upper Nile and 'many sold themselves for slaves, only to get a sustenance', and especially in 1738–1756, when West Africa's greatest recorded subsistence crisis, due to drought and locusts, reportedly killed half the population of Timbuktu."John Iliffe (2007) Africans: the history of a continent . Cambridge University Press. p. 69.
French colonisation
Mali fell under the control of France during the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century. By 1905, most of the area was under firm French control as a part of French Sudan. In November 1915 a large anti-French uprising broke out among the tribes.La guerre coloniale du Bani-Volta, 1915-1916 (Burkina Faso, Mali) , Autrepart, 2003. French colonial troops destroyed over 100 villages, and the last resistance was suppressed by September 1916.14-18 Étions-nous bien défendus ?, Jean-Claude Flament, Société des écrivains, 2014. On 24 November 1958, French Sudan (which changed its name to the Sudanese Republic) became an autonomous republic within the French Community. In January 1959, Mali and Senegal united to become the Mali Federation.
The Mali Federation gained independence from France on 20 June 1960. Senegal withdrew from the federation in August 1960, which allowed the Sudanese Republic to become the independent Republic of Mali on 22 September 1960, the country's Independence Day.
Independence and Keïta regime Modibo Keïta was elected the first president. He quickly established a one-party state, adopted an socialist orientation with close ties to the East, and nationalised large parts of the economy.