The UNESCO World Heritage Site in Mali that contains the mud-brick Great Mosque, the largest earthen building in the world, is the Old Towns of Djenné.
Djenné developed on an inland delta of the Niger and Bani rivers, a location that connected agricultural communities with long-distance trade routes. Its historic area contains hundreds of traditional earthen buildings, many made from sun-dried mud brick and finished with mud plaster.
The Great Mosque is the best-known monument. The present structure dates mainly from a rebuilding completed in 1907, on the site of earlier mosques. Its annual replastering festival is a major communal event, during which residents repair the vulnerable earthen surfaces.
UNESCO inscribed the Old Towns of Djenné in 1988. Djenné is distinct from Timbuktu, another Malian World Heritage property known for its historic mosques, manuscripts and role in trans-Saharan scholarship.