With its giant
mud-built mosques, villages carved into cliff-sides and massive
camel caravans traversing the
desert, Mali makes for a stunningly surreal destination.
Rapidly developing, particularly in the main
cities, tourists can find high standards of accommodation and cuisine on offer. Intriguing and colorful
markets, vast desertscapes and
ancient tombs and relics are all waiting to be discovered. All of this makes it hard to believe Mali is one of the world’s poorest countries.
Once an overseas territory of France, Mali gained
independence in 1960, and today it is one of the most politically and socially stable countries in Africa.
GeographyMali is a landlocked republic, sharing borders with Mauritania, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Niger and Senegal. It is a vast land of flat plains fed by two major rivers, the Senegal on its western edge and the great River Niger. On its journey north the Niger converges with the River Bani, and forms a rich inland delta, the marshlands of the Macina, stretching for some 450km (280 miles) along the river’s length, in some places 200km (124 miles) wide. The central part of the country is arid grazing land, called the Sahel, which has suffered great drought.
At Timbuktu, the Niger reaches the desert and here it turns first to the east, then to the southeast at Bourem, where it heads for the ocean. In the desert, near the Algerian and Niger borders in the northeast, the Adrar des Iforas massif rises 800m (2,625ft). The north of the country is true desert except for the few oases along the ancient trans-Saharan camel routes. Tuaregs still live around these oases and camel routes. Further south live the Peulh cattle-raising nomads. The majority of the population lives in the savannah region in the south. The peoples of this region comprise Songhai, Malinke, Senoufou, Dogon and the Bambara (the largest ethnic group).
Next Page »
