Goundam is a mostly ethnically-Tuareg city of 16,000 people (2009) in the Timbuktu region of Mali.

Understand

The town has a long history as a center for Songhay farmers and Bozo fishing communities, as well as settled elements of the semi-nomadic Fula, Tuareg and Maure peoples. Goundam was a city of the Songhai Empire, fell to the Moroccan invasion in 1591, and was later seized by Tuareg confederations from the northeast and the Fula of the delta region. Most powerful of these Fula states was the Macina Empire, centered to the southwest. The Toucouleur Empire conquered the area in the mid 19th century, and the French captured the town in 1894.

Get in

It lies 35 km (22 mi) to the northwest of the Niger river town of Diré, and 97 km by highway west-southwest of Timbuktu.

See

• Grand Mosque of Goundam, an historic mud brick building

Do

• Goundam Stadium

Go next

• Timbuktu