Guinea — map and facts

About Guinea

Guinea is a West African country bordered by Guinea-Bissau and Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the east, Liberia and Sierra Leone to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its capital and largest city is Conakry, home to roughly four million people, while the national population stands at approximately 14 million. Guinea is predominantly Muslim and ethnically diverse, with the Fula, Mandinka, Susu, and Kissi among the major groups. French is the official language. The country possesses extraordinary mineral wealth: Guinea holds roughly a third of the world's known bauxite reserves, the raw material for aluminium, and also has significant gold, iron ore, and diamond deposits. Despite these resources, Guinea remains one of the world's poorer nations due to decades of misrule and corruption. The country was ruled by a military junta following a coup in September 2021 that ousted President Alpha Condé, who had himself taken power in 2010 after Guinea's first-ever democratic election.

Geography and Landscape

Guinea covers approximately 246,000 square kilometres and encompasses four distinct geographic zones. Lower Guinea, or the Guinean coastal region, consists of a narrow Atlantic coastal plain with mangroves, estuaries, and the capital Conakry situated on the Kaloum Peninsula. The Fouta Djallon highland massif dominates the centre of the country, rising to over 1,500 metres and constituting one of West Africa's most important water towers: the Niger, Gambia, and Senegal rivers all have their headwaters in this plateau. The Fouta Djallon's highest point, Mount Loura, reaches approximately 1,538 metres. Upper Guinea is a vast savanna plateau in the east drained by the upper Niger River. The Forest Guinea region in the south, bordering Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, is a zone of dense tropical forest and higher relief, including Mount Nimba near the tripoint with Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, which at 1,752 metres is Guinea's highest peak. Guinea's climate ranges from equatorial near the coast to tropical savanna in the interior.

History

Guinea's history stretches back to the great medieval empires of the Sahel. The Ghana Empire and later the Mali Empire held sway over parts of the region, followed by the Songhai Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Fula jihad of the eighteenth century established the Imamate of Futa Jallon, a powerful Islamic theocratic state centred on the highlands. France began penetrating the region in the mid-nineteenth century, and the territory was incorporated into French West Africa. Guinea became notable as the only French sub-Saharan territory to vote "No" in Charles de Gaulle's 1958 referendum on a new French Union, choosing immediate independence under Sékou Touré. Touré governed from 1958 until his death in 1984, maintaining a one-party socialist state marked by political repression. A military coup upon his death brought Lansana Conté to power until 2008. After a brief interlude of junta rule and a transitional government, Alpha Condé won Guinea's first democratic election in 2010 but grew increasingly authoritarian, eventually being removed in the coup of September 2021.