According to COUNTRYAAH, Mali, the official name of the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa and borders on Mauritania in the northwest, Algeria in the north, Niger in the east, Burkina Faso in the southeast, Ivory Coast and Guinea in the south and Senegal in the west.
Various maps illustrate the administrative structure of the country, its topography or enable a comparison of Mali with the West African countries and clarify its interdependence in the regional context. Map collections for the country offer e.g. FAO or the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
- Abbreviation Finder: Check to see national geography, brief history, society description, domestic politics, economy overview, and a list of widely used acronyms about Mali.
Climate
There are three seasons in Mali. From November to February it is dry and mostly warm, from March to May it is dry and very hot. During this time, violent dust storms can occur, especially in northern Mali. In June the humid and humid season begins, which sometimes brings very heavy rains and ends in September / October.
The distribution of precipitation shows large regional differences. Precipitation, which is concentrated in the months of July and August, decreases from south to north. The mean annual precipitation is 1123 mm in Sikasso in the south-east of the country and only 159 mm in Timbuktu on the edge of the Sahara. In addition, the length of the rainy season decreases from south to north, while the variability of precipitation and the risk of drought increase. In the north, there have been repeated periods of drought of several years in the recent past, which have had serious consequences for the predominantly nomadic population living there. On the other hand, rainfall is very rare in the desert.
During the rainy season, especially in southern and central Mali, flooding can occur as a result of heavy rainfall, which can cause great damage in some places and sometimes even devastate entire villages. Significant damage was reported in the years 2010 to 2013 as well as in 2019 and 2020 from the capital, where the effects of heavy rainfall are exacerbated by inappropriate land use planning and inadequately developed and maintained sewers.
A comparison of the climate tables and climate diagrams of different Malian cities quickly shows that Mali is a very warm country. The mean daily temperature in the capital Bamako is 27.8 °C on an annual average. The maximum and minimum temperatures measured in Bamako over the past decade were 44 ° and 8 °, respectively. The maximum temperatures reach 45 °C in the south and even over 50 °C in the north. In the months of December to February, on the other hand, night temperatures in the desert areas can drop to below 5 °C.
Bridgat provides continuously updated information on the weather in Mali. Numerous thematic maps can be found in the Mapjourney map collection.
The topic of climate change is dealt with comprehensively below.
