Tourist Areas of Mali

Kayes
The city of Kayes was in 1892 the first capital of Upper Senegal-Niger future French Sudan. To leave this place of capital in Bamako afterwards. The city is dotted with symbols of colonization.

A concentrate of all types of tourism, Kayes has many sites and curiosities which are among others: the Colonial Buildings, the Island of Modinkané located 12km from the town of Kayes, the Tata de Koniakary 75 km from Kayes, the Chutes du Felou at 17km, the Gouina Falls at 80km, the town of Toukoto at 250km, the town of Kita at 394km, the Kita kourou at kita, the Sacred Vestibule of the griots of Boudefo, the Statue of the Virgin Mary, the Reserve du Bafing, the Baoulé loop, the Senegal River which allows you to take a cruise.

over an area of ​​120,760 km², home to 1,438,261 inhabitants, made up of Khassonkés, Soninkés, Peuls, Bambara, Moors and Malinkés.

The city of Kayes was in 1892 the first capital of Upper Senegal-Niger future French Sudan. To leave this place of capital in Bamako afterwards. The city is dotted with symbols of colonization.

A concentrate of all types of tourism, Kayes has many sites and curiosities which are among others: the Colonial Buildings, the Island of Modinkané located 12km from the town of Kayes, the Tata de Koniakary 75 km from Kayes, the Chutes du Felou at 17km, the Gouina Falls at 80km, the town of Toukoto at 250km, the town of Kita at 394km, the Kita kourou at kita, the Sacred Vestibule of the griots of Boudefo, the Statue of the Virgin Mary, the Reserve du Bafing, the Baoulé loop, the Senegal River which allows you to take a cruise.

SOUTH MALI
BAMAKO, the caiman river: Bamako is located in a basin surrounded by five peaks of the Manding Mountains (Koulouba 404m, Farakoulou 463m, Kouloumagni Koulou 483m, Point G Koulou 493m and Lassa Koulou 504m). Founded in 1640 by the Niaré, Touré, Dravé and Somono families, the city of the three caimans is the political and administrative capital of the Republic of Mali. Built into a district, Bamako covers an area of ​​1,420 km² divided into six urban communes. The streets of the city of Bamako are lively, active and colorful. Bamako is charming, authentic and traditional at the same time. The city has modern and expanding tourist infrastructure.

 

SIKASSO, Nature, Greenery: The kingdom of Kénédougou of kings Tiéba and Babemba TRAORE and the empire of Wassoulou with Almamy Samori TOURE marked the history of the resistance of Sikasso against colonial penetration.

Cultural city, Sikasso is home to mask dances, the triangular balafon festival, traditional events and musical expressions of Wassoulou.

Sikasso, the verdant is the capital of the 3rd administrative region of Mali. Located in the south of the country, it borders with three countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Guinea Conakry.

The wettest area in Mali with an average annual temperature of 27 ° C, the region covers an area of ​​76,480 km². Its population is estimated at 1,800,000 inhabitants, made up of Sénoufo, Minianka, Bobo, Peuls, Bambara and Malinké etc. The region of Sikasso constitutes an ecotourism site par excellence.

CENTRAL MALI
KOULIKORO, a Millennial Civilization: With an area of ​​90,120 km2 and a population of 1,570,507 souls, the region of Koulikoro, very rich because of its glorious past, has as a whole five (05) very varied cultural areas which are:

Ouagadou in the North;Mandé in the South;Bélédougou in the west and in the center;Baninko in the EastThe Djitoumou in the South East. This region was the cradle of West African civilization with two (02) Great Empires: Ouagadou and Mali, whose influence has gone beyond African borders.

Koulikoro is known thanks to Nianan Kulu, an imposing site where Soundiata KEITA, founder of the Empire of Mali, distinguished himself during the battle against Soumangourou Kanté, the sorcerer king of Sosso who would have disappeared there.

Today, the second administrative region of Mali, Koulikoro is an industrial zone where several factories are located: the Huilerie Cotonnière du Malin (HUICOMA); the Naval Construction Industry of Mali (INACOM), the Grand Moulin du Mali (GMM), the Brasserie du Mali (BRAMALI), the Cotton Ginning Factory.

 

Segou: Welcome to Ségou, the land of shea butter, “four thousand four hundred and forty-four balanzans (acacia albida) and the only hunchbacked foot, the meaning of which even the locals don’t know”.

Segou was the heart of the powerful Bambara kingdom founded in 1712 by Mamary Biton COULIBALY and his Tonjons, relayed by the dynasty of DIARRA N’Golossi. Kingdom very warlike and very attached to the land, Ségou will be conquered in 1862 by Toucouleur El Hadj Omar TALL and occupied in 1891 by the French Archinard.

4th administrative region of Mali with an area of ​​60,947 km² and a population of 3,038,000 inhabitants made up of Bambara, Miniaka, Bwa, Soninké, Peuls, Moors, Somonos and Bozos whose pride is expressed through the nobility of the dances that are Bara, Bondialan, Sogola, Boron, Naminé. These dances are performed alone or accompanied by masks and puppets.

 

Djenné, the twin sister of Timbuktu: On the Niger River, two cities by their intellectual and political importance, by their wealth born of trade, the luster of their scholars, the beauty of their monuments that have come down to our generation, have conquered a celebrity that even today the visitor will not find spoofed. These two cities are Timbuktu and Djenné which it has been said in Mali that they are like two halves of the same city.

 

The learned Es Saadi said of Djenné: this city is large, flourishing and prosperous, it is rich, blessed from heaven and favored by God. He bestowed on this country all his favors as a natural and inborn thing. The inhabitants of Djenné are benevolent, kind and hospitable.

Listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988, Djenné is a religious city founded at the dawn of the 9th century which produced scholars in the Muslim world including Mohamed Bagayoko.

The city offers to the glances the splendid architecture of its two-storey houses built in mud and pediment, rare example in Africa of a site entirely preserved from the ravages of time and predatory modernism.

No impression is as strong as the one felt by the traveler who arrives on a Monday, market day in Djenné, around noon the merciless light blazes the colors of the boubous and the clamor of the crowd fills the space in front of the famous mosque of Djenné. It has a prayer space of 50 m by 26 m, an interior courtyard, 104 ventilation and ventilation holes and 99 pillars that support the roof, making this mosque the largest earthen building in the world. The great Mosque of Djenné is the subject of an annual plastering ceremony which brings together the whole city and its surroundings for two days.

 

The fascinating dogon universe: The Dogon country is undoubtedly the most picturesque region of Mali, beauty and diversity, the architectural style of the houses, the way of life of the inhabitants are all unforgettable attractions.
From Mopti, the entrance to the Dogon country evokes the entrance to a temple. The geography itself allows the comparison: rising chaotically from the lowlands of Macina to break into a peak which dominates the plain of the gondo -séno: it is the cliff of Bandiagara.

Listed as a world cultural and natural heritage of humanity by UNESCO since 1989, the Dogon country is like a temple which one can only enter if one has patiently initiated oneself to admit the radical strangeness of a universe cultural whose values ​​are based on an extraordinarily complex and rich philosophy and religion. Here, the natural universe is no less difficult to access than the cultural universe. Sangha is only the pre-style of the temple, whose most secret and beautiful chapels are nestled in the hollows of the cliff.

The mask dance in Dogon country is sacred. Originally, in African civilizations all dances are linked to religious rites. Among the Dogons, the dance of masks is exclusively a matter for men. The Dogon ballet, composed of a variable number of dancers, includes an immutably fixed number of kinds of masks among which, the kanaga “mask of the Gods” which even became the emblem of Mali at a given time.

The Dogons are a proud people whose culture is considered to be one of the richest and oldest in Africa.

 

Mopti: At the confluence of the Niger River and its tributary the Bani, Mopti, capital of the region with its 108,000 inhabitants, originates from Bozo camps dating from the 12th century. It quickly spread over islands linked by dikes. Crossroads of the ethnic groups of the river, the north, the central savannas and the Dogon cliffs, Mopti commonly called “Malian Venice” because of its insular situation is a prosperous city, full of movements and noise.

NORTH-EAST MALI
Timbuktu, the pearl of the desert: Gold comes from the South, salt comes from the North, silver from the country of the whites, but beautiful things, good stories are only found in Timbuktu ” announces the illustrious scholar writer Es-Saadi.

Timbuktu, which gave its name to Mali’s sixth administrative region, is a religious city founded in the 12th century and was a metropolis in medieval times.

According to the hypotheses, his birth is the fact either of a former camp of Berber nomads, or of the self-sacrifice of an old woman called “Buktu”, responsible for guarding the Tuareg well outside the transhumance seasons, or the origin from the Songhai populations, having named it for its geographical location in a basin.

Timbuktu, the pearl of the desert, the Athens of Africa acquired from the outset an indefinable mystery which makes some people say: Timbuktu cannot be told, we see it or we do not see it.

After a flawless influence of several centuries well beyond the limits of the Muslim world, Timbuktu retains the rich hours of its grandiose past.

Thousands of manuscripts, handed down from generation to generation, remain in the libraries of its Islamic university.

This unprecedented crossroads, five centuries ago when traders from the Sahara, savannas and forests exchanged metals, salt, spices, fabrics, food products, still remains today the rallying point of all enthusiasts and of a trade still active.

Timbuktu has been classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1988.