Geography of Mali

Mali is a landlocked nation in West Africa, located southwest of Algeria, extending south-west from the southern Sahara Desert through the Sahel to the Sudanian savanna zone. Mali's size is 1,240,192 square kilometers.

Desert or semi-desert covers about 65 percent of Mali's total area (1,240,192 square kilometers). The Niger River creates a large and fertile inland delta as it arcs northeast through Mali from Guinea before turning south and eventually emptying into the Gulf of Guinea.

The territory encompasses three natural zones: the southern cultivated Sudanese zone, central semi-desert Sahelian zone, and northern desert Saharan zone. The terrain is primarily savanna in the south and flat to rolling plains or high plateau (200–500 meters in elevation) in the north. There are rugged hills in the northeast, with elevations of up to 1,000 meters.

The Niger (with 1,693 kilometers in Mali) and Senegal are Mali's two largest rivers. The Niger is generally described as Mali's lifeblood, a source of food, drinking water, irrigation, and transportation.

The country's lowest point is on the Senegal River (23 m) and its highest point is Hombori Tondo (1155 m).

Mali is one of the hottest countries in the world, and has overall a hot, sunny and dry climate dominated by the subtropical ridge. The thermal equator, which matches the hottest spots year-round on the planet based on the mean daily annual temperature, crosses the country. Most of Mali receives negligible rainfall and droughts are very frequent. Late April to early October is the rainy season in the southernmost area. During this time, flooding of the Niger River is common, creating the Inner Niger Delta. The vast northern desert part of Mali has a hot desert climate (Köppen BWh) with long, extremely hot summers and scarce rainfall which decreases northwards. The central area has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh) with very high temperatures year-round, a long, intense dry season and a brief, irregular rainy season. The southern areas have a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw) featuring very high temperatures year-round with a dry season and a rainy season. During the hottest season of the year, temperatures are high throughout the country. Timbuktu, Taghaza, Taoudenni, Araouane, Gao, Kidal and Tessalit are some of the hottest spots on Earth during their warmest months. Kayes, with an average high temperature of about 44 °C or 111.2 °F in April is nicknamed "the pressure cooker of Africa" due to the extreme heat year-round. The heat is more extreme to the north in the Sahara Desert; the maximum average high temperature of the year reaches 46 °C or 114.8 °F in Araouane in June and comes close to 48 °C or 118.4 °F in the Taoudenni region during July. Sunshine duration is high in Mali, reaching the highest levels in the northern arid zone with about 3,600 – 3,700 h a year.

Geologically, Mali consists mostly of vast flatlands of granite and shale covered by sandstone and alluvial quartz. Mali extends over two main geological structures, the West African craton in the west and the Tuareg shield in the southeast, which came together at the end of the Precambrian era between 600 and 550 million years ago. The suture zone is to the west of the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

The underlying rocks of the West African craton are covered in the northwest by sediments of the Taoudeni basin, with two main outcrops of crystalline rocks in the northern Reguibat shield in Mauritania and the southern Leo shield which includes the Bougouni and Kenieba outcrops, both of which contain valuable minerals. There may also be petroleum reserves in the Taoudeni basin.