Guinea in the context of "Renaud Piarroux"

West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo, as well as Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (a United Kingdom Overseas Territory). As of 2021, the population of West Africa is estimated at 419 million, and approximately 382 million in 2017, of which 189.7 million were female and 192.3 million male. The region is one of the fastest growing in Africa, both demographically and economically.

Historically, West Africa was home to several powerful states and empires that controlled regional trade routes, including the Mali and Gao Empires. Positioned at a crossroads of trade between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, the region supplied goods such as gold, ivory, and advanced iron-working. During European exploration, local economies were incorporated into the Atlantic slave trade, which expanded existing systems of slavery. Even after the end of the slave trade in the early 19th century, colonial powers — especially France and Britain — continued to exploit the region through colonial relationships. For example, they continued exporting extractive goods like cocoa, coffee, tropical timber, and mineral resources. Since gaining independence, several West African nations, such as the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal — have taken active roles in regional and global economies.

Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. It has a population of around 5.5 million and covers an area of 43,000 square miles (111,369 km). The official language is English. Over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. The capital and largest city is Monrovia.

Liberia began in the early 19th century as a project of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed that black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born African Americans, along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia. Gradually developing an Americo-Liberian identity, the settlers carried their culture and tradition with them while colonizing the indigenous population. Led by the Americo-Liberians, Liberia declared independence on July 26, 1847, which the U.S. did not recognize until February 5, 1862.

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa and the 23rd largest country in the world, with an area of over 1,240,192 square kilometres (478,841 sq mi). The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east by Niger, to the northwest by Mauritania, to the south by Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, and to the west by Guinea and Senegal. The population of Mali is about 23.29 million, 47.19% of which are estimated to be under the age of 15 in 2024. Its capital and largest city is Bamako. The country has 13 official languages, of which Bambara is the most commonly spoken.

The sovereign state's northern borders reach deep into the middle of the Sahara Desert. The country's southern part, where the majority of inhabitants live, is in the Sudanian savanna and has the Niger and Senegal rivers running through it. The country's economy centres on agriculture and mining with its most prominent natural resources including gold (of which it is the third largest producer in Africa) and salt.

Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated along the Atlantic Ocean coast. It borders Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast and Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal nearly surrounds The Gambia, a country occupying a narrow strip of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal's southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. It also shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. The capital and largest city of Senegal is Dakar.

Senegal is the westernmost country in the mainland of the Old World, or Afro-Eurasia. It owes its name to the Senegal River, which borders it to the north and east. The climate is typically Sahelian, with a rainy season. Senegal covers a land area of almost 197,000 square kilometres (76,000 sq mi) and has a population of around 18 million. The state is a presidential republic; since the country's foundation in 1960, it has been recognized as one of the most stable countries on the African continent. On the 2024 V-Dem Democracy Indices, Senegal is ranked 68th in electoral democracy worldwide and 10th in electoral democracy in Africa.

French West Africa (French: Afrique-Occidentale française, AOF) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger. The federation existed from 1895 until 1958. Its capital was Saint-Louis in Senegal until 1902, and then Dakar until the federation's collapse in 1960.

With an area of 4,689,000 km, French West Africa was eight times the size of Metropolitan France. French Equatorial Africa had an additional area of 2,500,000 km.

A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. Usually, refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations (such as the International Committee of the Red Cross), or non-governmental organization. Unofficial refugee camps, such as Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, are where refugees are largely left without the support of governments or international organizations.

Refugee camps generally develop in an impromptu fashion with the aim of meeting basic human needs for only a short time. Facilities that make a camp look or feel more permanent are often prohibited by host country governments. If the return of refugees is prevented (often by civil war), a humanitarian crisis can result or continue.

The Senegal River (Serer: "Seen O Gal" or "Senegal" - compound of the Serer term "Seen" or "Sene" or "Sen" (from Roog Seen, Supreme Deity in Serer religion) and "O Gal" (meaning "body of water")); Wolof: Dexug Senegaal, Arabic: نهر السنغال, romanized: Nahr as-Siniġāl, Hassaniyya pronunciation: [nahrˤ əs.säjnigaːl], French: Fleuve Sénégal) is a 1086-kilometre-long (675 mi) river in West Africa; much of its length marks part of the border between Senegal and Mauritania. It has a drainage basin of 270000 km (100000 sq mi), a mean flow of 680 m/s (24,000 cu ft/s), and an annual discharge of 21.5 km (5.2 cu mi). Important tributaries are the Falémé River, Karakoro River, and the Gorgol River. The river divides into two branches once it passes Kaédi. The left branch, called the Doué, runs parallel to the main river to the north. After 200 km (120 mi) the two branches rejoin a few kilometers downstream of Podor.

In 1972 Mali, Mauritania and Senegal founded the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS) to manage the river basin. Guinea joined in 2005. As of 2012, only very limited use was made of the river for the transportation of goods and passengers. The OMVS have looked at the feasibility of creating a navigable channel 55 m (180 ft) in width between the small town of Ambidédi in Mali and Saint-Louis, a distance of 905 km (562 mi). It would give landlocked Mali a direct route to the Atlantic Ocean.

African French (French: français africain) is the umbrella grouping of varieties of the French language spoken throughout Francophone Africa. Used mainly as a secondary language or lingua franca, it is spoken by an estimated 320 million people across 34 countries and territories, some of which are not Francophone, but merely members or observers of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Of these, 19 sovereign states recognize it as an official de jure language, though it is not the native tongue of the majority. According to Ethnologue, only 1,2 million people spoke it as a first language. African French speakers represent 67% of the Francophonie, making Africa the continent with the most French speakers in the world.

In Africa, French is often spoken as a second language alongside the Indigenous ones, but in a small number of urban areas (in particular in Central Africa and in the ports located on the Gulf of Guinea) it has become a first language, such as in the region of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the urban areas of Douala, Yaoundé in Cameroon, in Libreville, Gabon, and Antananarivo.

The Paleotropical kingdom (Paleotropis) is a floristic kingdom composed of the tropical areas of Africa, Asia and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand), as proposed by Ronald Good and Armen Takhtajan. Part of its flora is inherited from the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana or exchanged later (e.g. Piperaceae with pantropical distribution and but few warm temperate representatives). These Gondwanan lineages are related to those in the Neotropical kingdom, composed of the tropical areas of Central and South America. Flora from the Paleotropical kingdom influenced the tropical flora of the Australian Kingdom. The kingdom is subdivided into five floristic subkingdoms according to Takhtajan (or three, according to Good) and about 13 floristic regions. In this article the floristic subkingdoms and regions are given as delineated by Takhtajan.