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 capital is Bamako.
Mali consists of eight regions and its borders on the north reach deep into the middle of the Sahara, while the country’s southern region, where the majority of inhabitants live, features the Niger and Sénégal rivers.
The Niger is generally described as Mali’s lifeblood, a source of food, drinking water, irrigation, and transportation.