In the 1230s, a man called Sundiata Keita incorporated a series of smaller kingdoms into the Mali Empire. The empire was central to several key trading routes, and with the support of a well ...

In the years following the pilgrimage, European cartographers visited the Empire of Mali numerous times, hoping to produce early maps of the world. Famously, the Catalan Atlas, produced in 1375 ...

Mansa Musa was emperor of the West African Mali Empire. Covering roughly 500,000 square miles of land, it was the biggest empire West Africa has ever known. 2. Mansa Musa is still the richest man ...