Geography of Mali
Encyclopedia
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
is a landlocked nation in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
, located southwest of Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, extending south-west from the southern Sahara
Sahara
The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
through the Sahel
Sahel
The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian Savannas in the south.It stretches across the North African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea....
to the Sudanian savanna
Sudan (region)
The Sudan is the name given to a geographic region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western to Eastern Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilâd as-sûdân or "land of the Blacks"...
zone.
At about 1.2 million square kilometers, Mali is comparable in size to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and is almost twice the size of the US state of Texas. Mali shares a total of 7,243 kilometers of land boundaries with seven bordering states: Algeria (1,376 kilometers) to the north and northeast, Niger (821 kilometers) to the east, Burkina Faso (1,000 kilometers) to the southeast, Côte d’Ivoire (532 kilometers) to the south, Guinea (858 kilometers) to the southwest, and Senegal (419 kilometers) and Mauritania (2,237 kilometers) to the west.
Topography
Mali's territory encompasses three natural zones: the southern cultivated Sudanese zone, central semiarid Sahelian zone, and northern arid Saharan zone. The terrain is primarily savanna in the south and flat to rolling plains or high plateau (200–500 meters in elevation) in the north. There are rugged hills in the northeast, with elevations of up to 1,000 meters. Desert or semi-desert covers about 65 percent of the country’s area. The Niger River creates a large and fertile inland delta as it arcs northeast through Mali from Guinea before turning south and eventually emptying into the Gulf of Guinea.The Niger (with 1,693 kilometers in Mali) and Senegal are Mali’s two largest rivers. The Niger is generally described as Mali’s lifeblood, a source of food, drinking water, irrigation, and transportation.
The country's lowest point is on the Senegal River
Sénégal River
The Sénégal River is a long river in West Africa that forms the border between Senegal and Mauritania.The Sénégal's headwaters are the Semefé and Bafing rivers which both originate in Guinea; they form a small part of the Guinean-Malian border before coming together at Bafoulabé in Mali...
(23 m) and its highest point is Hombori Tondo (1,155 m).
Climate
Mali's climate ranges from subtropical in the south to arid in the north. The country is mostly dry, with 4–5 months of rainy season. In Bamako, at an elevation of 340 metres (1,115 ft) above sea level, temperatures generally range from 16 to 39 °C (60.8 to 102.2 °F). January is the coldest month, with temperatures ranging from 16 to 33 °C (60.8 to 91.4 °F), and April is the hottest month, with temperatures averaging 34 to 39 °C (93.2 to 102.2 °F). Annual precipitation in Bamako averages 1120 millimetres (44.1 in). The driest months are December and January with zero rainfall. The wettest month is August, which averages 220 millimetres (8.7 in) of rainfall. Most of the country receives negligible rainfall, and droughts are a recurring problem. During dry seasons, a hot, dust-laden harmattan haze is also common. Flooding of the Niger River occurs regularly in the rainy season (approximately June/July–November/December).Geology
The area of Mali consists mostly of vast flatlands of graniteGranite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and shale
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
covered by sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
and alluvial quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
. Mali extends over two main geological structures, the West African craton
West African craton
The West African craton is one of the five large masses, or cratons, of the Precambrian basement rock of Africa that make up the African Plate, the others being the Kalahari craton, Congo craton, Saharan Metacraton and Tanzania craton. These land masses came together in the late Precambrian and...
in the west and the Tuareg shield
Tuareg Shield
The Tuareg Shield is an area lying between the West African craton and the Saharan Metacraton in West Africa. It has complex geology, reflecting the collision between these cratons and later events...
in the southeast, which came together at the end of the Precambrian
Precambrian
The Precambrian is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale...
era between 600 and 550 million years ago. The suture zone is to the west of the Adrar des Ifoghas
Adrar des Ifoghas
The Adrar des Ifoghas is a sandstone massif in Mali's Kidal Region, having an area of about 250,000 km².The area is characterized by wide, shallow valleys, and is strewn with piles of eroded granite blocks...
mountains. The underlying rocks of the West African craton are covered in the northwest by sediments of the Taoudeni basin
Taoudeni basin
The Taoudeni Basin is a major geological formation in West Africa named after the Taoudenni village in northern Mali. It covers large parts of the West African craton in Mauritania and Mali. It is of considerable interest due to its possible reserves of oil....
, with two main outcrops of crystalline rocks in the northern Reguibat shield in Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
and the southern Leo shield which includes the Bougouni
Bougouni
Bougouni is a commune and city in Mali, the administrative center of Bougouni Cercle, which is in turn found in the administrative region of Sikasso. Bougouni is located 170 km south of Bamako and 210 km west of the city of Sikasso...
and Kaneiba outcrops, both of which contain valuable minerals. There may also be petroleum reserves in the Taoudeni basin.
Natural resources
Mali is endowed with bauxite, copper, diamonds, gold, gypsum, iron ore, kaolin, limestone, lithium, manganese, phosphates, salt, silver, uranium, and zinc, but not all deposits are being exploited, and some may not be commercially viable. Mali also has amplehydropower.
Land use
Sixty-five percent of Mali’s land area is desert or semi-desert. According to estimates in 1998, only 3.8 percent of Mali’s area can be classified as arable land, and less than 0.1 percent was planted to permanent crops in that year. Mali was estimated to have 1,380 square kilometers of irrigated land in 1998.Environmental issues
Mali faces numerous environmental challenges, including desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, drought, and inadequate supplies of potable water. Deforestation is an especially serious and growing problem. According to the Ministry of theEnvironment, Mali’s population consumes 6 million tons of wood per year for timber and fuel. To meet this demand, 400,000 hectares of tree cover are lost annually, virtually ensuring destruction of the country’s savanna woodlands.
Mali is a party to international treaties on Biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
, Climate Change
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992...
, Desertification
Desertification
Desertification is the degradation of land in drylands. Caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities, desertification is one of the most significant global environmental problems.-Definitions:...
, Endangered Species
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
, Law of the Sea
Law of the sea
Law of the sea may refer to:* United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea* Admiralty law* The Custom of the Sea...
, Ozone Layer Protection, and Wetlands. It has signed, but not ratified: the Kyoto Protocol
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , aimed at fighting global warming...
and the Nuclear Test Ban.
Natural hazards
Natural hazards in Mali include:- Desert sandstormDust stormA dust / sand storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Particles are transported by saltation and suspension, causing soil to move from one place and deposition...
s in the north - Dust-laden harmattanHarmattanThe Harmattan is a dry and dusty West African trade wind. It blows south from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March...
wind is common during dry seasons, bringing a dust haze which may ground aircraft and damage computers and sensitive electronics and machines, as well as aggravating respiratory diseases. - Recurring droughtDroughtA drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
s - Bushfires in the south
- Occasional floodFloodA flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...
s, for example in July 2007. - Tropical thunderstormThunderstormA thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
s in the south, which may bring wind and lightningLightningLightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
damage as well as flash floods. - Occasional Niger River flooding
- Chocolate and cinnamon
Extreme points
This is a list of the extreme points of MaliMali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location.
- Northern-most point – the northern section of the border with MauritaniaMauritaniaMauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
, Tombouctou Region* - Eastern-most point – the eastern section of the border with NigerNigerNiger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
** - Southern-most point – Fonto Kourou on the border with Cote d'IvoireCôte d'IvoireThe Republic of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is a country in West Africa. It has an area of , and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be...
, Sikasso RegionSikasso RegionSikasso is the southern-most region of Mali. The capital city of the same name is the 3rd-largest city and is growing rapidly due to people fleeing the violence in Côte d'Ivoire to the south. Major ethnic groups include the Senoufo, known for masks and reverence for animals, the Samago, known for... - Western-most point - the tripointTripointA tripoint, or trijunction , is a geographical point at which the borders of three countries or subnational entities meet....
with SenegalSenegalSenegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
and MauritaniaMauritaniaMauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
, Kayes RegionKayes RegionKayes Region is one of eight first level national subdivisions, called Regions in Mali. It is the first administrative area of Mali and covers an area of 120,760 km²...
- *Note: Mali does not have a northern-most point, the border being formed by a straight horizontal line
- **Note: Mali does not have an eastern-most point, the border being formed by a straight vertical line