Mali
BluesyPete / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · cropped
Mali is the eighth-largest country in Africa, 1,240,192 km² of the western Sahel and Sahara with about 25 million people and its capital at Bamako. Algeria lies to the north, Niger and Burkina Faso to the east, Ivory Coast and Guinea to the south, and Senegal and Mauritania to the west. It is landlocked, and the northern two-thirds are desert; almost everyone lives in the south, along the great arc of the Niger, which enters from Guinea, swings north past Timbuktu to the desert's edge and turns away south-east into Niger. The inland delta it forms is the country's farmland.
There is one railway. 649 km of metre gauge runs from Koulikoro through Bamako to the Senegalese border and on to Dakar — the Malian half of the Dakar–Niger Railway, built to give a landlocked colony a route to the Atlantic. The through working has gone: international passenger trains stopped in 2010, and freight in 2018. What is left is domestic. The Bamako–Kayes service ceased in May 2018 with the track in poor condition, reopened after renovation on 9 June 2023, and stopped again five months later when a train derailed near Mahina. A single working ran the line at the end of July 2026; no regular timetable has been published since.
Rail journeys in Mali
Good to know
Does the train still run through to Dakar?
No. International passenger services on the Dakar–Niger Railway ceased in 2010 and freight followed in 2018. The Senegalese half is being rebuilt separately, so what was conceived as a single line from the Atlantic to the Niger is now two national projects. Any description of a through train from Bamako to Dakar is historical.
Why does a railway called the Dakar–Niger not reach the Niger?
It does, in a sense — but not the country. The name refers to the Niger River, not the Republic of Niger. The line was built from the Atlantic at Dakar to Koulikoro, a river town below Bamako, and was completed there in 1904; from that point onward the traffic went by boat. Rail and river were designed as one system, which is why the railway stops where it does.
What language is spoken in Mali?
Thirteen national languages, officially. French was the sole official language until 2022, when a new constitutional settlement replaced it with thirteen national languages and gave French the status of a working language. In practice French is still what administration and the railway are conducted in, and Bambara is the most widely spoken language in daily life.
Are there rail passes for Mali?
No. Mali belongs to no pass scheme and there is no multi-journey ticket. Tickets are bought for the individual train. Travellers should also read their own government's current advice before planning: Mali carries severe travel advisories, and that is a practical fact about the journey rather than an aside.