The territory known as Mali can be traced back to the fourth century of the Common Era when south west Mali was part of the Empire Of Ghana. By the thirteenth century the Ghana empire was in rapid decline and the Mali Empire was born from an area within the Ghana Empire known as Manden which had been ruled in Ghana's name.

The Mali Empire flourished based on the gold and salt mines within its borders and, by the beginning of the fourteenth century, ancient Mali was the source of half the world's gold. Mali's territory expanded north and west to the Atlantic ocean and, by the fourteenth century, was about the size of Western Europe, and the envy of many other African nations.

The area, then known as French Sudan, became the autonomous state of the Sudanese Republic in 1958 and gained full independence from France in 1960, forming, together with Senegal, the Federation of Mali. However months later Senegal withdrew from the federation and the Sudanese Republic was renamed the Republic of Mali.