History of West Africa

The history of West Africa traces the region’s societies, states, economies, cultures, and connections from early human communities to the present.

Connect

Ghana Empire: A medieval West African state that flourished between the Senegal and Niger rivers, gaining wealth through trade in gold and salt. Its rise illustrates how control of trans-Saharan commerce supported early regional states.
Trans-Saharan trade: The exchange of goods and people across the Sahara between North Africa and lands south of the desert. It linked Sahelian states to North African markets and helped circulate Islam.
Paleolithic Africa: The long period of African prehistory when people used stone tools and lived by hunting and gathering. West Africa’s recorded histories begin within a continent-wide history of human settlement and innovation.
Mansa Musa: The fourteenth-century ruler of the Mali Empire, remembered for his pilgrimage to Mecca and extraordinary wealth. His pilgrimage made Mali’s power visible to observers across North Africa and the Mediterranean.
Berlin Conference: The 1884–1885 meeting at which European powers set rules for claiming territory in Africa. Its agreements accelerated the territorial competition that brought European empires into West Africa.
Mali Empire: A West African empire that reached its height in the fourteenth century under rulers including Mansa Musa. Its expansion and wealth mark a major chapter in the region’s medieval history.
Niger River: A major West African river flowing in a broad arc through Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. Its floodplains and routes supported farming, cities, and commerce across successive states.
Dhar Tichitt: An archaeological site in Mauritania with evidence of settled communities and stone architecture from the second millennium BCE. Its remains document early farming and social organization in the western Sahel.
Ibn Battuta: A fourteenth-century Moroccan traveler whose writings describe societies across Africa and Asia. His account of Mali offers a valuable, though outsider’s, view of the empire.
French West Africa: A federation of French colonial territories in West Africa that existed from 1895 to 1958. Its centralized administration left institutional and linguistic legacies in several independent states.