Mali

From the gold of Wagadou to the Sahelian republic

On the bend of the upper Niger rose three of Africa's greatest medieval states — the Ghana (Wagadou), Mali and Songhai empires — grown wealthy on the trans-Saharan gold and salt trade and famed for the scholarship of Timbuktu and Djenné. Conquered piecemeal in the nineteenth century and absorbed into French Soudan, the territory became the independent Republic of Mali on 22 September 1960. A democratic opening in 1991 gave way after 2012 to insurgency in the north and a return to military rule.