Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country of mainland West Africa, on the Atlantic coast and bordered by Mauritania, Mali, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, with Dakar as its capital and largest city. The republic was established on 25 November 1958 and gained full independence from France on 20 June 1960; after briefly federating with French Sudan as the Mali Federation, Senegal withdrew from that union on 20 August 1960. It operates as a unitary semi-presidential republic, currently led by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and covers about 196,722 square kilometers with a population of roughly 18.8 million as of 2024. French is the official language, though Wolof serves as the lingua franca spoken by about 80 percent of the population among more than thirty languages spoken across the country, and about 91 percent of Senegalese are Muslim. Senegal is widely regarded as one of the most stable countries on the African continent since its founding in 1960.
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