Vernacular Architecture

Mali is an African country. It is located in the hot desert in West Africa. The capital is Bamako .Mali has different type of Climate: tropical climate in the south and arid climate in the north. Droughts are frequent and the rainfall all over the country is negligible. It has two main seasons, the wet season from June to October and the cool and hot dry season the remainder of the year. We find some species of trees such as the doom palm, the baobab, and leguminous fruit bearing plants.

History of Mali is very rich because of its very heterogeneous ethnic groups who did a lot in the past. Among them, the Songhai, the Bambara, the Mande, the Fula, the Dogon,etc There are 32 languages spoken in Mali, but the official national language is French, although 60% of the population speaks Bambara.

The majority of the population is Muslim. The Islam influence in the past centuries is what made Mali inherit some of the Islamic architectural patrimony, such as the Djenne Mosque, which has more than 600 years of sustainability, although it was made with “clay and wood” . Mali is also well known for its vernacular architectural patrimony from the Dogon, who in the past developed a certain kind of lifestyle, which up to now few people hardly understand. The vernacular architecture that creates curiosity attracts large number of tourists from around the world.

THE DOGON TRIBE OF MALI

The Dogon is a big tribe in Mali although their origin is unknown, but according to their own oral literature the Dogon are the ancestors of ancient Egyptians, who migrated from their actual settlement area in Ghana to the cliffs of Bandiagara along River Niger, to escape from the “Arab Muslim conquest” to Mali, in the 11th and 15th centuries. The Dog...

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