Which country has the city of Timbuktu?

Mali is the country that has the historic city of Timbuktu. The city lies near the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, in the Tombouctou Region of West Africa, close to the Niger River’s inland delta.

Timbuktu grew into a major centre of trans-Saharan trade and Islamic scholarship. From roughly the 13th to the 16th centuries, merchants exchanged gold, salt and other goods there, while scholars developed libraries and schools associated with the city’s mosques and madrasas.

The Djinguereber Mosque, Sankore Mosque and Sidi Yahya Mosque form part of Timbuktu’s celebrated architectural and intellectual heritage. Thousands of historic manuscripts from the city preserve writing on religion, law, science and literature. Timbuktu is in Mali, not Niger, despite the similar names of the country and the nearby Niger River.