The Ghana Empire (Arabic: غانا), also known as simply Ghana, Ghanata, or Wagadu, was an ancient western-Sahelian empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali.
It is uncertain among historians when Ghana's ruling dynasty began. The first identifiable mention of the imperial dynasty in written records was made by Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in 830. Further information about the empire was provided by the accounts of Cordoban scholar al-Bakri when he wrote about the region in the 11th century.