Bamako

Bamako is the capital and largest city of Mali, with a population of 1.8 million (2009 census, provisional). In 2006, it was estimated to be the fastest growing city in Africa and sixth-fastest in the world. It is located on the Niger River, near the rapids that divide the upper and middle Niger valleys in the southwestern part of the country.

Bamako is the nation's administrative center. The city proper is a cercle in its own right. Bamako's river port is located in nearby Koulikoro, along with a major regional trade and conference center. Bamako is the seventh-largest West African urban center after Lagos, Abidjan, Kano, Ibadan, Dakar, and Accra. Locally manufactured goods include textiles, processed meat, and metal goods. Commercial fishing occurs on the Niger River.

The name Bamako (Bàmakɔ̌ in Bambara) comes from the Bambara word meaning "crocodile river".

History

The area of the city has been continuously inhabited since the Palaeolithic era for more than 150,000 years. The fertile lands of the Niger River Valley provided the people with an abundant food supply and early kingdoms in the area grew wealthy as they established trade routes linking across west Africa, the Sahara, and leading to northern Africa and Europe. The early inhabitants traded gold, ivory, kola nuts, and salt. By the 11th century, the Empire of Ghana became the first kingdom to dominate the area. Bamako had become a major market town, and a centre for Islamic scholars, with the establishment of two universities and numerous mosques in medieval times.

Bamako (film)

Bamako is a 2006 film directed by Abderrahmane Sissako, first released at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival on 21 May and in Manhattan by New Yorker Films on 14 February 2007.

The film depicts a trial taking place in Bamako, the capital of Mali, amid the daily life that is going on in the city. In the midst of that trial, two sides argue whether the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are guided by special interest of developed nations, or whether it is corruption and the individual nations' mismanagement, that is guilty of the current financial state of many poverty-stricken African countries as well as the rest of the poor undeveloped world.

Danny Glover, one of the film's executive producers, also guest-stars as an actor in a Western film (called Death in Timbuktu) that some children are watching on the television in one scene.

Accolades

Actress Aïssa Maïga was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress in 2007.

Bamako was the recipient of the first Film Award of the Council of Europe (FACE) given at the Istanbul International Film Festival in April 2007.

Bamako (disambiguation)

Bamako could refer to:

See also