Location and geography
Sierra Leone is a tropical country on the coast of West Africa. It has one of the world's largest natural deep-water ports, with direct shipping routes to Brazil, Rotterdam and Hamburg.
Geography
A coastal belt of low land about 70 miles wide rises to a mountain plateau, with timber forest near the eastern border. Freetown, the capital and commercial centre, is in the western area. The country is rich in plants, wildlife and marine life, with beaches and an archipelago of islands. It borders Guinea to the north and east and Liberia to the south.
History
The name goes back to 1462, when the Portuguese captain Pedro da Sintra sailed south along the West African coast and saw the long mountain range of the Freetown peninsula. He called it Sierra Lyoa, meaning Lion Mountains. In the sixteenth century an English sailor changed it to Sierra Liona, which became Sierra Leone.
Later the British set up a crown colony at Freetown and ruled the interior indirectly through traditional rulers, in what was called the protectorate, until independence in 1961.
People
Freetown has about 1.2 million people. There are fifteen indigenous ethnolinguistic groups, of which the Mende, in the south-east, and the Temne, in the north-west, are the largest.
Climate
The climate is tropical. There is a rainy season from May to October and a dry season for the rest of the year. Rainfall is high, averaging about 3,000 mm a year, with July and August the wettest months. Temperatures are high all year.
International memberships
Sierra Leone is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the African Union, ECOWAS, the African Development Bank, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Non-Aligned Movement and the International Criminal Court. With Guinea and Liberia it formed the Mano River Union to carry out development projects and promote regional integration.