Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a country on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, between Guinea to the north and Liberia to the southeast. Its 73,252 km² (28,283 sq mi) range from savanna to rainforest, and the name comes from the Lion Mountains above Freetown, called Serra Leoa by the Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra in 1462. Freetown is the capital; English is the official language, and Krio is spoken by almost everyone as a shared tongue.

Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia founded Freetown on 11 March 1792, and in 1808 the coast became a British colony. Fourah Bay College, opened in 1827, made the colony a center of learning in West Africa. A protectorate over the interior followed in 1896. Independence came in 1961 under Prime Minister Milton Margai, and a constitution of 1971 made Siaka Stevens the first president, who later allowed only one party.

The secular presidential republic has a directly elected president and a single-chamber parliament. About three quarters of the people are Muslim, with a large Christian minority, and the Temne and Mende are the largest of some 18 ethnic groups. Diamonds, gold, bauxite and rutile, a titanium ore, are the main mineral wealth. The currency is the leone, and rice is eaten at almost every meal, topped with sauces of potato leaves, cassava leaves or groundnut stew.

The Gola Rainforest National Park and the Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2025. The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary cares for endangered chimpanzees in the forest reserve of the Freetown Peninsula, whose coast is lined with beaches.