The African country of Mali is not the place to be recommended for a well-deserved vacation. The unstable political environment, general poverty, sky-high levels of corruption and other factors keep this state on the list of the least prosperous on the planet. Global problems are shaking the country one after another, and so far no improvement is on the horizon.
Facts about Mali
- A big part of it The troubled state is controlled by the forces of several radical organizations that are considered terrorist by the world community.
- In the XIII-XVII centuries, the powerful Mali Empire was located here. The modern name of the country is a reference to those times.
- About 20 million people live in Mali. This is about 3.5 million less than in Shanghai, the most populous city in the world, which is located in China (interesting facts about China).
- The first people appeared on the territory of Mali around the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. And just a thousand years after that, they had already begun to master the basics of agriculture.
- When they were a colony of France, these lands had a different name – French Sudan. French is still one of the two official languages here.
- Many buildings in Mali are built with mud bricks. They do not differ in strength, since these bricks are fired simply in the sun, and not in a kiln.
- There is a lake called Antogo, which is considered sacred by the locals. Even fishing in it is allowed only one day a year, during a special holiday.
- The Malian town of Nyono stands on the water, and it is all riddled with numerous channels and canals. True, it still doesn’t look much like Venice (interesting facts about Venice).
- Military coups took place in Mali in 1968, 1991 and 2012. The last of them completely cut off the already meager flow of tourists from the country, depriving it of another source of foreign currency.
- It is a great honor for the Malian territory to be called flat as a table. About 90% of the land here is on an endless plain with sparse vegetation.
- There is only one university in the whole country. For a long time, it was even closed for a very non-trivial reason – a lack of people who want to get an education.
- The total number of the Malian army does not exceed 7500 people.
- In terms of population growth, Mali is one of the first in the world places. And this despite the fact that because of the rudimentary medicine in the sad ranking of infant mortality, this country ranks fourth in the world.
- The average life expectancy in Mali is only slightly over 50 years. According to this parameter, the country is not even included in the top 200 countries of the world.
- Mali is officially a secular Muslim state. But almost the entire population here is extremely religious, which the Malians are very proud of.
- According to statistics, just over a third of the population here lives far below the poverty line.
- Mali ranks first in Africa in terms of manufacturing and cotton exports (interesting facts about cotton).
- The only famous Malian writer, Yambo Uologum, once won the prestigious Renaudeau literary prize given in France. But soon she was recalled back, as it turned out that the book for which he received this award was “borrowed” by Uologum from the British writer Graham Greene, passing it off as his own.
- In rural Mali, the monthly salary fluctuates around marks of 50-60 US dollars. This country has long been on the list of the poorest in the world.
- The name of the Malian capital, Bamako, is translated from the local Bambara language as “crocodile river”. There are really a lot of crocodiles here, and the trinity of these reptiles is even depicted on the coat of arms of the capital.