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The city is situated nine miles from the Niger River, making for good agricultural land. Its position near the edge of the Sahara Desert made it a hub for trans-Saharan trade routes. Timbuktu also acts as a midpoint between the regions of North, West, and Central Africa. Because of this, Timbuktu developed into a cultural melting pot.
Timbuktu was still relatively unimportant and Battuta quickly moved on to Gao. At the time both Timbuktu and Gao formed part of the Mali Empire. A century and a half later, in around 1510, Leo Africanus visited Timbuktu. He gave a description of the town in his Descrittione dell'Africa which was published in 1550. [12]
Ultimately, however, it was the rise of sea trade along the West Africa coast that doomed the overland routes that connected North Africa to sub-Saharan Africa. The city lost its economic base and its fine university was not enough to save Timbuktu from decline. Cut off from major trade routes, the city retained an aura of spectacular treasure.
During the 200 year period between 1301 and 1500 (the 14th and 15th century) the main civilizations and kingdoms in Africa were the Mali Empire, Kingdom of Kongo, Ife Empire, Benin Kingdom, Songhai Empire, Hausa City-states, Wolof Empire, Great Zimbabwe, Kingdom of Makuria, Kanem Empire,Ethiopian Empire, Kilwa Sultanate, Kingdom of Mapungubwe, Kingdom of Mutapa, and the Ajuran Sultanate.
He mentions an abundance of barley, rice, livestock, fish and cotton and also the importance of trade with north Africa in which merchants exported cotton and imported European cloth, copper, brass, and arms. In the trade with Timbuktu merchants visited during the annual flood using small narrow canoes. Unstamped gold was used for coinage. [50]
In Africa, there are 91 cultural, 50 natural, and 6 mixed sites. [1] Several efforts have been devoted to increasing the number of sites and preserving the heritage of existing sites on the continent; for example, on 5 May 2006, the African World Heritage Fund was launched by UNESCO to target the region of Sub-Saharan Africa. It planned to ...
Major Alexander Gordon Laing (27 December 1794 – 26 September 1826) was a Scottish explorer and the first European to reach Timbuktu, arriving there via the north-to-south route in August 1826. He was killed shortly after he departed Timbuktu, some five weeks later.
There were many kingdoms and empires in all regions of the continent of Africa throughout history. A kingdom is a state with a king or queen as its head. [1] An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant centre and subordinate peripheries".