History › Middle ages › Mali Empire
Ghana Empire
recorded from the 700s; declined after c. 1076–1240· Empire, kingdom or state· Middle East & Africa
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
A West African trading kingdom of the Soninke people that grew rich taxing the gold and salt crossing the Sahara.
See it on the History map →What happened
Its rulers, whose title 'ghana' gave the kingdom its name, sat between gold fields to the south and camel caravans from North Africa. They taxed salt coming in and gold going out, and reserved gold nuggets for the king. The Arab geographer al-Bakri in 1068 described a capital split into a royal town and a Muslim merchants' town with twelve mosques. It lay in today's Mauritania and Mali, not modern Ghana, which borrowed the name in 1957.
Why it matters
It was the first great state of the West African gold trade, a model that Mali and later Songhai followed on a larger scale.
Think of it like
Like a toll-bridge owner: Ghana did not mine the gold itself; it taxed every load that crossed its territory.
How we know
Accounts by Arab writers, especially al-Bakri (1068) and al-Idrisi (1154); excavations at Koumbi Saleh in Mauritania, the likely capital; Soninke oral traditions of 'Wagadu'.
Still debated
Whether the Almoravids, a Berber Muslim movement, actually conquered Ghana around 1076, as older histories said, is debated; its origins are also unclear.
Connections (2)
▸Ghana Empire was succeeded by Mali EmpireWell documented
The connection
Ghana's power faded from the late 1000s, and the Sosso kingdom took over part of its land. Sundiata Keita's Mali defeated the Sosso around 1235 and absorbed the old Ghanaian territory, taking over the same Saharan gold-and-salt trade on a larger scale, with richer gold fields further south.
When and how
The western Sahel, in today's Mali and Mauritania, about 1200–1240; the traditional key battle is Kirina, around 1235.
How we know
Arabic writers, especially Ibn Khaldun; the Epic of Sundiata; archaeology at Koumbi Saleh showing the old capital's decline.
Debates and open questions
Exact dates, and how violent the transition was, are uncertain; the Kirina story comes from oral epics recorded centuries later.
▸Ghana Empire traded gold with Muslim merchants of Islamic caliphatesMostly agreed
The connection
As caliphate rule spread across North Africa in the 600s–700s, Muslim merchants organized camel caravans across the Sahara. They brought salt, copper, cloth and horses south and carried West African gold north. Ghana's kings taxed this flow, and much of the gold was struck into dinars, the gold coins of the Muslim world.
When and how
Trans-Saharan routes linking Sijilmasa in Morocco to Ghana's capital, from the 700s; Muslim merchants lived in their own town beside the royal one.
How sure are we?
Al-Bakri's 1068 description of Ghana's twin capital; an Arab astronomer calling Ghana 'the land of gold' in the late 700s; North African goods found at Koumbi Saleh.
Debates and open questions
When regular trade across the Sahara began, before or only after the Arab conquest, is debated; camels and some trade predate Islam there.