INFO
CAPITAL
Conakry
POPULATION
11,855,411 (July 2018 est.)
CLIMATE
Tropical
CURRENCY
9,230 Guinean franc (GNF) = 1USD (2017 est.)
IMPORTANT CITIES
Farana, Kankan, Port Kamsar
AREA
245,857 sq.km.
PEOPLE
NATIONALITY
Guinean
MAJOR PEOPLES
Baga, Fulani
RELIGION
Muslim 89.1{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, Christian 6.8{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, animist 1.6{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, other .1{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, none 2.4{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}
LITERACY
30.4{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}
PRINCIPAL LANGUAGE
Madinka, Malinke, Susu, Fulfulde
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
French
POLITICS
HEAD OF STATE
Alpha Condé (since December 21 2010)
TYPE OF GOVERNMENT
Presidential Republic
DATE OF INDEPENDENCE
October 2, 1958
MAJOR EXPORTS
Bauxite, Diamonds, Gold, Coffee, Fish, Agricultural Products
PRECOLONIAL HISTORY
Hunter-gatherers inhabited Guinea in prehistoric times, and migration from the Sahara region took place by 200 BCE. The Malinké people forged powerful empires—especially the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai—in the area from the 10th—15th centuries. Portuguese explorers reached Guinea in the 15th century, but its hazardous coastline prevented European expansion into the mainland until the 19th century. Civil war and Moroccan invasions split the Songhai Empire into smaller kingdoms in the late 16th century. The French began to explore Guinea in 1849. A French settlement was established on the Nunez River, and the coast was declared a protectorate. The colony was incorporated into French West Africa in 1895. By this time, the Fulani people had founded an Islamic state in central Guinea, and Samory Touré was leading the Wassoulou Empire in Malinké territory in the north. Touré led his army against the French throughout the 1880s and 1890s until his capture and exile in 1898. He died in prison two years later. The port city of Conakry became the capital of French Guinea in 1904. Political groups and labor unions mobilized for Guinean independence after World War II. Ahmed Sékou Touré, Samory Touré’s grandson, led the Parti Démocratique de Guinée (PDG) to vote for complete independence from France in 1958.
POSTCOLONIAL HISTORY
France ceded control, and Touré became the first president of the new republic. Touré’s regime, however, became a dictatorial single-party system dominated by the Malinké ethnic group. He remained in office until his death in 1984. The Military Committee of National Recovery (Comité militaire de redressement national, CMRN) seized power one week later, and abolished the constitution and the PDG. The leader of the CMRN, General Lansana Conté, became the second president of Guinea. He remained head of state amid political dissent and an assassination attempt until his death in 2008. Captain Moussa Dadis Camara staged a military coup d’état and declared himself president. He survived an assassination attempt by his security guard in 2009 and was sent into exile in Burkina Faso. Alpha Condé, the leader of the Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen (RPG) party, was elected president in 2010 after decades of running unsuccessfully against Lansana Conté. Conté survived an assassination attempt the following year, purportedly led by the military, and removed all three military members from his cabinet in 2012.