Niger

Niger is a landlocked country in West Africa bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria to the south, Benin and Burkina Faso to the southwest, Mali to the west and Algeria to the northwest, covering nearly 1.27 million square kilometers, Africa's sixth-largest country and the second-largest landlocked country on the continent, more than 80 percent of it within the Sahara Desert. Niamey, in the southwest along the Niger River, is the capital of a country whose population was estimated at about 29 million in 2026, the 55th-most populous in the world; the Hausa people make up roughly 56 percent of the population, and Hausa is the official language alongside working languages English and French. France colonized the territory during the Scramble for Africa, and Niger gained independence on 3 August 1960; it has since experienced five coups d'etat and four periods of military rule, most recently the coup of July 2023, after which President Abdourahamane Tiani has led the country's National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland. Niger's economy centers on subsistence agriculture and uranium exports, and the United Nations' Multidimensional Poverty Index ranks it among the poorest countries in the world.