Mali

République du Mali
Republic of Mali
République du Mali Republic of Mali
	Motto: Un peuple, un but, une foi (English: One people, one goal, one faith)
	Anthem: Pour l'Afrique et pour toi, Mali (English: For Africa and for you, Mali);
Capital; (and largest city)	Bamako; 12°39′N 8°0′W
Official languages	French
Government	Parliamentary democracy
Independence	From France
Area
Population
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
Currency	CFA franc (XOF)
Time zone	(UTC0)
Internet TLD	.ml
Calling code	+223

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For other uses, see Mali (disambiguation).

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked nation in Western Africa. It is the second largest country in West Africa. Formerly French Sudan, the country is named after the Empire of Mali. The name of the country comes from the Bambara word for hippopotamus and the animal appears on the Mali 5 franc coin.

History

The Mandé peoples settled the Sahel, including present-day Mali, and formed a succession of Sahelian kingdoms, including the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, and the Songhai Empire. Timbuktu was a key city in these empires as an outpost for trans-Saharan trade and a center for scholarship. The Songhai Empire declined after a Moroccan invasion in 1591.

Mali was invaded by France starting in 1880 and then annexed as an overseas department. The colony, which at times also included neighboring countries, was known as French Sudan or the Sudanese Republic. In early 1959, the union of Mali and Senegal became the Mali Federation, which gained independence from France on June 20, 1960. Senegal withdrew from the Mali Federation after a few months. The Republic of Mali, under Modibo Keïta, withdrew from the French Community on September 22, 1960.

Modibo Keita was the victim of a coup in 1968, after which Mali was ruled by Moussa Traoré until 1991. Anti-government protests in 1991 led to a coup, a transitional government, and a new constitution. In 1992, Alpha Oumar Konaré won Mali's first democratic, multiparty presidential election. Upon his reelection in 1997, President Konaré pushed through political and economic reforms and fought corruption. In 2002 he was succeeded in democratic elections by Amadou Toumani Touré, a retired general who had been the leader of the military aspect of the 1991 democratic uprising.

Politics

Under Mali's 1992 constitution, a president is elected for a five-year term as chief of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. This president appoints the prime minister and chairs the Council of Ministers, which adopts proposals for laws submitted to the National Assembly for approval. The constitution defines Mali as being a multiparty democracy and prohibits parties based on ethnic, religious, regional, or gender lines.

The National Assembly is the sole legislative arm of the government and currently consists of 147 members. Members serve five years. Eight political parties are currently represented in the Assembly. ADEMA currently holds the majority among these groups.

Mali is divided into eight administrative regions, which are made up of districts. These districts are composed of communes, which contain villages. Since decentralization plans began, a total of 702 local municipal councils have been formed. These are headed by elected mayors.

The Malian legal system is largely defined by the country's former colonial status under France. Moves have been made to change this system to more closely conform to the culture of the country, but many laws of the French era remain in effect. The judiciary is defined by the constitution as being an independent body. Currently, judges are appointed by the Ministry of Justice. Mali has both a constitutional court and a high court of justice.

View over Bamako

Geography

File:Mali sat.png

Satellite image of Mali, generated from raster graphics data supplied by The Map Library

It borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the southwest, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its straight borders on the north stretch into the center of the Sahara Desert, while the country's south, where the majority of inhabitants live, features the Niger and Senegal rivers. The country remains land-locked, with desert regions in the north and savanna in the south. Southern Mali is wetter, and natural vegetation is increasingly abundant, while northern Mali is arid and desert. The hot, dry winds that blow from the northeast are known as harmattan

At 478,734 mi² (1,240,000 square kilometers, Mali is the world's 24th-largest country (after Angola). It is comparable in size to South Africa, and is nearly twice the size of the U.S. state of Texas.

Mali is landlocked and has a subtropical to arid climate. It is mostly flat, rising to rolling northern plains covered by sand, with savanna around the Niger River in the south. The hills of the Air Massif and Djado Plateau lie in the northeast. Most of the country lies in the Sahara Desert, which produces a hot, dust-laden harmattan haze common during dry seasons and leads to recurring droughts. The nation has considerable natural resources, with gold, uranium, phosphates, kaolinite, salt and limestone being most widely exploited.

Economy

Market scene in Kati

Mali is among the poorest countries in the world, with 65 percent of its land area desert or semidesert. Economic activity is largely confined to the riverine area irrigated by the Niger River. About 10 percent of the population is nomadic, and some 80 percent of the labor force is engaged in farming and fishing. Industrial activity is concentrated on processing farm commodities. Pottery is also practiced by women whose wares are bought by dealers and transported to markets where they are sold by traders. The traditional methods used by the potters are an attraction to foreign tourists. Mali is heavily dependent on foreign aid and vulnerable to fluctuations in world prices for cotton, its main export. In 1997, the government continued its implementation of an IMF-recommended structural adjustment program. Several multinational corporations increased gold mining operations in 1996-1998, and the government anticipates that Mali will become a major sub-Saharan gold exporter in the next few years.

Demographics

Mali's population consists of diverse sub-Saharan ethnic groups sharing similar historic, cultural, and religious traditions. Exceptions are the Tuaregs and Maurs, desert nomads related to the North African Berbers. The Tuaregs traditionally have opposed the central government. Starting in 1990 in the north, Tuaregs seeking greater autonomy clashed with the military. In 1992, the government and most of the opposing factions signed a pact to end the fighting and restore stability in the north. Its major aims are to allow greater autonomy to the north and increase government resource allocation to what has been a traditionally impoverished region.

Culture

Mosque under construction in Bamako

Approximately 90 percent of Malians follow Sunni Islam, but not always to the exclusion of traditional religious beliefs and practices. Muslims have their own educational systems, leading in some cases to the equivalent of baccalaureate and doctoral studies. An increasingly large number of Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca and study in Arab countries. Christians comprise about 5 percent of the population. Under French colonial rule the introduction of missionaries into predominantly Islamic areas was discouraged.

Literacy in French, the official language, is low and is concentrated in the urban areas. The government has expanded literacy considerably since 1960 by stressing education at the primary and lower secondary levels. A national university was established in Bamako in the 1990s.

Architecture of Mali- Great Mosque of Djenné
List of writers from Mali
Languages of Mali
Music of Mali
Roman Catholicism in Mali

Miscellaneous topics

Communications in Mali
Foreign relations of Mali
Military of Mali
Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2002: Rank 43 out of 139 countries (2 way tie)
Transportation in Mali
Scouting in Mali
Media of Mali
Jews of the Bilad el-Sudan (West Africa)
African Jew

External links

Mali Portal

Music

Listing of Malian Musicians
Habib Koite
Cora Connection West African music
Live from Bamako Djembe drumming from West Africa and other traditional music

Tourism

Countries of Africa

Sovereign states
Algeria · Angola · Benin · Botswana · Burkina Faso · Burundi · Cameroon · Cape Verde · Central African Republic · Chad · Democratic Republic of the Congo · Republic of the Congo · Comoros · Côte d'Ivoire · Djibouti · Egypt¹ · Equatorial Guinea · Eritrea · Ethiopia · Gabon · The Gambia · Ghana · Guinea-Bissau · Guinea · Kenya · Lesotho · Liberia · Libya · Madagascar · Malawi · Mali · Mauritania · Mauritius · Morocco · Mozambique · Namibia · Niger · Nigeria · Rwanda · Senegal · Seychelles · Sierra Leone · Somalia · South Africa · Spain² · Sudan · Swaziland · São Tomé and Príncipe · Tanzania · Togo · Tunisia · Uganda · Zambia · Zimbabwe

Dependencies | Unrecognized
British Indian Ocean Territory (UK) · French Southern and Antarctic Lands (France) · Mayotte (France) · Réunion (France) · St. Helena³ (UK) | Puntland · Somaliland · Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

¹ Partly in Asia. ² Mostly in Europe. ³ Includes the dependencies of Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha.

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