Geography Quiz Arcade

Mali 🇲🇱

Mali is a country in Africa with a population of 22,593,590. Its capital is Bamako. The official currency is XOF, and the main languages are French.

Quick facts

  • Capital: Bamako
  • Continent: Africa
  • Population: 22,593,590
  • Area: 1,240,192 km²
  • Density: 18.2 people per km²
  • Currency: XOF
  • Languages: French
  • ISO code: ML

Where Mali sits

Mali 🇲🇱 is one of 54 countries in Africa, with its capital at Bamako. It covers 1,240,192 square kilometres — 23rd in the world — and is home to about 22,593,590 people, 59th globally.

The countries it shares a continent with include Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. If you are learning geography region by region — which works far better than alphabetically, because memory for places is spatial — those are the ones to learn alongside it.

How Mali compares

Raw figures are hard to hold on their own, so it helps to anchor them. In population, Mali sits closest to Burkina Faso and Syria. In land area, its nearest counterparts are Angola and South Africa.

At 18.2 people per square kilometre it is about 3.3 times below the world average of 59.4. It ranks higher by area than by population, so it is more spacious than its population alone suggests.

French is an official language in 30 countries here, among them Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso and Burundi, and 25 others. The XOF is shared with 7 other countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau, and 4 others.

To see Mali next to every other country, sort the country rankings by population, area or density; its currency and languages are listed alongside every other country's in world currencies and world languages.

How to remember Mali

Bamako is on the Niger River in the southwest. For the flag, Mali is plain green-gold-red with nothing on it: Senegal adds a green star, and Guinea reverses the order to red-yellow-green.

The flag of Mali: green, gold and red

🇲🇱 The flag is three vertical stripes of green, gold and red. Green, gold and red are the Pan-African colours, used by many African flags.

Region and neighbours

Mali is a large landlocked country in West Africa, with the Sahara Desert in the north and the Niger River flowing through the south. It shares land borders with 7 countries: Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania. Mali is landlocked, with no coast on the open ocean.

Three facts about Mali

  1. The Great Mosque of Djenné is the largest mud-brick building in the world.
  2. Mansa Musa, who ruled the Mali Empire in the 1300s, was so rich that people of his time described his wealth as unimaginable.
  3. The old city of Timbuktu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Mali, Wikipedia: Flag of Mali, Wikipedia: Bamako, Wikipedia: Great Mosque of Djenné, Wikipedia: Mansa Musa, Wikipedia: Timbuktu, CIA World Factbook.

Quiz yourself on Mali

Quizzes that include Mali

Three angles are worth covering for any country — where it is, what its flag looks like, and what its capital is. For Mali those are:

Doing all three for one continent before moving on is far more efficient than learning flags globally, then capitals globally, then the map.

Read more about Mali

Nearby countries

Frequently asked questions

What are the colours of the Mali flag?

The flag of Mali is three vertical stripes of green, gold and red. Green, gold and red are the Pan-African colours, used by many African flags.

Which countries border Mali?

Mali shares land borders with Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania.

How can I remember the capital of Mali?

Bamako is on the Niger River in the southwest. For the flag, Mali is plain green-gold-red with nothing on it: Senegal adds a green star, and Guinea reverses the order to red-yellow-green.