Printable ScholarGhana, Mali and Songhai Map
A free printable map of the three great empires of West Africa, Ghana, Mali and Songhai, drawn on real terrain, with their capitals, the trading cities of the Niger River and the caravan routes across the Sahara. It comes in color, black and white, and blank.
Choose your version
Black and white, color or blank.
All three are free PDFs sized for US Letter paper.
Black and white
Everything named on a plain outline map with no terrain. No color ink needed.
downloadBlack and white PDF
Color
The three empires outlined in color, with cities, trade routes, rivers and the Sahara named.
downloadColor PDF
Blank
The black-and-white map with its routes and markers but no names, for labeling practice.
downloadBlank PDFThe empires of West Africa
For about 600 years, three great empires rose one after another in the grasslands of West Africa, between the Sahara Desert and the forests to the south. They grew rich from trade across the Sahara. Gold came from the Bambuk and Bure gold fields in the south, and salt, which people needed and which was scarce in the south, came from desert mines such as Taghaza. Camel caravans carried the gold north to North Africa and the Mediterranean and brought back salt, cloth and books, and Islam spread along the same routes. Ghana, the first of the empires, was at its height about 1000 and ruled from Koumbi Saleh; it is not the same place as the modern country of Ghana, which took its name in 1957. Mali, founded by Sundiata Keita in the 1200s, was larger still. Its most famous ruler, Mansa Musa, made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 and gave away so much gold on the way that people talked about it for centuries, and Timbuktu became a center of trade and learning. Songhai, ruled from Gao on the Niger River, grew under Sunni Ali and Askia Muhammad in the late 1400s to become the largest of the three. It fell in 1591, when an army from Morocco armed with guns defeated it at the Battle of Tondibi.
On the map
- Koumbi Saleh: the capital of Ghana
- Niani: the traditional capital of Mali
- Gao: the capital of Songhai, on the Niger River
- Timbuktu: a trading city and center of learning
- Djenne: a trading city famous for its mud-brick mosque
- Taghaza: salt mines in the Sahara
- Walata, Tadmekka and Sijilmasa: towns on the caravan routes
Find it on the map
- The Niger River, which bends north toward the Sahara at Timbuktu
- How each empire grew bigger and farther east than the one before
- The caravan routes crossing the Sahara to North Africa
The empire outlines are approximate, adapted from the historical-basemaps dataset by A. Ourednik (GPL-3.0): Ghana from its map for the year 1000, Mali from 1300 and Songhai from 1500. Historians still debate where some capitals stood, and Niani is the traditional site of the capital of Mali. The trade routes are drawn through the main towns and oases on them and are approximate. Coastlines and rivers are shown as they are today.
Frequently asked questions
What were the three empires of West Africa?
Ghana, at its height about 1000; Mali, at its height in the 1300s under Mansa Musa; and Songhai, the largest, in the late 1400s and 1500s. Each grew rich from the gold and salt trade across the Sahara.
Is ancient Ghana the same as the country of Ghana?
No. The Ghana Empire lay far to the north and west, in what is now southern Mauritania and western Mali. The modern country took the old name when it became independent in 1957.
Why was the gold and salt trade so important?
West Africa had gold but little salt, and the Sahara had salt but no gold. People needed salt to stay healthy and to keep food from spoiling, so salt from the desert was traded for gold, and the empires grew rich by controlling and taxing that trade.
Who was Mansa Musa?
The ruler of Mali from about 1312 to 1337. On his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 he carried and gave away so much gold that it made Mali famous across North Africa and Europe.