The traditional home of the Dogon people along Mali’s Bandiagara Escarpment is the UNESCO World Heritage Site called Cliff of Bandiagara. The property includes dramatic sandstone cliffs, plateaus, villages and cultural landscapes.
The escarpment rises above the surrounding plain and extends for roughly 150 kilometres. Dogon communities developed settlements adapted to the difficult terrain, using cliff faces, ledges and sheltered spaces for homes, granaries and ritual purposes.
The site is important for both natural scenery and living cultural traditions. Its architecture, social organization, ceremonies and relationship with the landscape are closely connected. Earlier inhabitants, including the Tellem, also left archaeological traces in cliff shelters.
UNESCO inscribed the site in 1989 as a mixed cultural and natural property. Its official name is often given as Cliff of Bandiagara, or Land of the Dogons, and it should not be confused with Mali’s separate historic cities of Djenné and Timbuktu.