Guinea

Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a country on the coast of West Africa bordered by Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Ivory Coast to the east, Sierra Leone to the southwest and Liberia to the south, with the Atlantic Ocean to the west, covering 245,857 square kilometers, roughly the size of the United Kingdom. Conakry is its capital and largest city, and the 2025 census recorded a population exceeding 17.5 million across four geographic regions, Maritime Guinea, Middle Guinea in the Fouta Djallon highlands, Upper Guinea and Forested Guinea, with more than 24 indigenous languages spoken alongside official French. A former French colony, Guinea gained independence on 2 October 1958 after voting for sovereignty in a September referendum; the country has since experienced repeated political instability, including military coups in 1984, 2008 and 2021, and held its first democratic election only in 2010. Guinea is a unitary presidential republic, currently led by President Mamady Doumbouya following the 2021 coup; its economy depends primarily on agriculture and mineral extraction, and Guinea is the world's second-largest producer of bauxite alongside diamond and gold deposits, though about 66 percent of the population experienced multidimensional poverty as of 2018.