mali

Mali is the Saharan country of Timbuktu, on the Niger River. Travel to Mali, northern Mali, the music of Mali.

It is landlocked and largely desert, with most people living in the south along the Niger. Medieval Mali was one of the richest empires in the world, built on gold and salt across the trans-Saharan trade, and Timbuktu was a centre of manuscript learning with libraries that still survive. Malian music — the kora, the ngoni, the desert blues — has an influence far beyond the country's size.