Guinea

The Upper Guinea highlands were part of the medieval Mali Empire, and the Fouta Djalon became, in the eighteenth century, one of West Africa's early Islamic states, a Fula theocracy of learning and cattle. France conquered the region in the late nineteenth century after prolonged resistance led by Samori Touré, and ruled it as French Guinea.

In 1958 Guinea was the only French colony to vote "no" in de Gaulle's referendum on a French Community, choosing immediate independence under Ahmed Sékou Touré. France withdrew abruptly, cutting off its aid and pulling out its technical and administrative staff. Sékou Touré built a paranoid one-party socialist state; almost 5,000 people are estimated to have been executed or to have died at the Camp Boiro detention centre, and large numbers fled into exile before his death in 1984.

A second long-serving strongman, Lansana Conté, ruled from 1984 to 2008. A 2008 coup was followed by a 2009 stadium massacre of opposition protesters by the junta. Alpha Condé won the country's first genuinely competitive election in 2010 but engineered a disputed third term in 2020, and in September 2021 the military, led by Mamady Doumbouya, seized power. A new constitution was approved in a referendum on 21 September 2025, and in the presidential election of 28 December 2025 Doumbouya was declared the winner with about 87 per cent of the vote, a result criticised by opposition groups and the United Nations; he was inaugurated as a civilian president in January 2026. Despite holding perhaps a quarter to a half of the world's bauxite reserves and vast iron ore, Guinea remains very poor.

Guinea's main peoples are the Fula (Peul) of the Fouta Djalon, the Maninka (Malinké) of Upper Guinea, the Susu of the coast, and a cluster of smaller peoples in the southeastern "forest region." Most Guineans are Muslim, with Christian and traditional-religion minorities concentrated in the forest.

The country has a rich griot tradition — hereditary musicians and oral historians of the Mande world — and produced some of Africa's most celebrated post-independence bands, such as Bembeya Jazz National, along with kora and balafon masters and the kora player and singer Mory Kanté. The state ballet and orchestras were a showcase of Sékou Touré's cultural nationalism.

Social life runs on the extended family, respect for elders and religious teachers, long greetings, and hospitality to guests, with tea poured in rounds a common ritual of welcome.

Conakry, a crowded, humid city strung along a narrow peninsula, holds a large share of the population and most formal jobs. The rest of the country is rural: Fula herders and gardeners in the cool highlands, Maninka farmers on the savanna plains, rice growers on the coast, and coffee and cola farmers in the forest.

The economy is dominated by mining — Guinea supplies a large share of the world's bauxite, much of it to China, and is developing the enormous Simandou iron-ore deposit — yet the wealth has done little for most people, and infrastructure, electricity, and public services are weak. Agriculture, informal trade, and remittances sustain most households.

Guinea was also the origin of the 2013–16 West African Ebola epidemic, which began in a forest-region village and killed thousands before it was contained. Daily life outside the mining zones follows the single rainy season, the market, the mosque, and the farming calendar.

Guinean cooking is West African and rice-based. Plain rice is eaten with a sauce — groundnut (mafé), leafy sauce feuille, palm-oil, or okra — usually with fish or a little meat. Riz gras, rice cooked in a rich tomato-and-oil sauce with vegetables, is a common festive dish.

Fonio, a tiny highland grain, is a Fouta Djalon speciality, steamed like couscous; cassava, plantain, and sweet potato feature in the forest region. Grilled fish and brochettes, and bean or wheat fritters, are the street foods of Conakry.

Ginger juice, bissap (hibiscus), and sweet strong tea are the everyday drinks, along with the local beer where alcohol is sold. Mangoes, pineapples, and oranges are abundant in season.

Guinea's scenery is its main draw for the few travellers who reach it. The Fouta Djalon highlands, cool and green, offer some of West Africa's best hiking: plateaus and escarpments around Dalaba and Pita, the Kambadaga falls on the Kokoula river, which can reach 100 metres in the rains, the Ditinn falls near Dalaba, and Fula villages amid gardens and orange groves.

Off Conakry, the Îles de Los — Kassa, Roume, and Tamara — are a quick boat trip to palm-fringed beaches; they were a slave-trading station and then a British possession from 1818 until they were handed to France in 1904, and Tamara once held a prison. In the far southeast, the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared by Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire on a ridge that runs on into Liberia, protects a massif full of endemic species; iron-ore mining in its most vulnerable zone has kept it on the list of World Heritage in Danger since 1992.

Upper Guinea has the old caravan and empire history of Kankan and the upper Niger at Faranah, and the forest region around Nzérékoré is the most ethnically mixed part of the country. For most visitors, though, Guinea is a country to travel through with patience rather than a developed destination.