Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It shares its southeastern border with Liberia and is bordered by Guinea to the north. With a land area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi), Sierra Leone has a tropical climate and with a variety of environments ranging from savannas to rainforests. According to the 2015 census, Sierra Leone has a population of 7,092,113, with Freetown serving as both the capital and largest city. The country is divided into five administrative regions, which are further subdivided into 16 districts.
Under prime minister Siaka Stevens of the All People's Congress (APC), the country adopted a new constitution in 1971, transforming Sierra Leone into a presidential republic with Stevens as the inaugural president. After declaring the APC the sole legal party in 1978, Stevens was succeeded by Joseph Saidu Momoh in 1985. Momoh's enactment of a new constitution in 1991 reintroduced a multi-party system. That year, a protracted civil war initiated, featuring the government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group, leading to significant turmoil. The conflict, characterized by multiple coups d'état, persisted for 11 years. Intervention by ECOMOG forces and later the United Kingdom resulted in the defeat of the RUF in 2002, ushering in a period of relative stability and recovery efforts. The remaining two main political parties are the APC and the SLPP. (Full article...)
As military head of state, Bio returned Sierra Leone to a democratically elected government, when he handed power to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People's Party, following Kabbah's victory in the 1996 Sierra Leonean presidential election. Upon retiring from the military in 1996, Bio moved to the United States, where he was granted political asylum, and he did not visit Sierra Leone from the U.S. until 2005. (Full article...)
Image 8Isata Mahoi shown editing radio programmes in Talking Drum studio Freetown; she is also an actress in the Sierra Leone radio soap opera Atunda Ayenda (from Sierra Leone)
Image 9An 1835 illustration of liberated Africans arriving in Sierra Leone (from Sierra Leone)
Image 10Temne leader Bai Bureh seen here in 1898 after his surrender, sitting relaxed in his traditional dress with a handkerchief in his hands, while a Sierra Leonean West African Frontier Force soldier stands guard next to him (from Sierra Leone)
Image 13British West African Campaign troops in Freetown, 1914–1916. Published caption: "British expeditionary force preparing to embark at Freetown to attack the German Cameroons, the main object of the attack being the port of Duala. Auxiliary native troops were freely used in African warfare." (from Sierra Leone)
Image 17Temne leader Bai Bureh seen here in 1898 after his surrender, sitting relaxed in his traditional dress with a handkerchief in his hands, while a Sierra Leonean West African Frontier Force soldier stands guard next to him (from Sierra Leone)
Image 19A mosque and a church in Sierra Leone (from Sierra Leone)
Image 20British West African Campaign troops in Freetown, 1914–1916. Published caption: "British expeditionary force preparing to embark at Freetown to attack the German Cameroons, the main object of the attack being the port of Duala. Auxiliary native troops were freely used in African warfare." (from Sierra Leone)
Image 26Historical GDP per capita development (from Sierra Leone)
Image 27A farmer with his rice harvest in Sierra Leone. Two-thirds of Sierra Leone's population are directly involved in subsistence agriculture. (from Sierra Leone)
Image 28The Sierra Leone Supreme Court in the capital Freetown, the highest and most powerful court in the country (from Sierra Leone)
Image 50An APC political rally in the northern town of Kabala outside the home of supporters of the rival SLPP in 1968 (from Sierra Leone)
Image 51A farmer with his rice harvest in Sierra Leone. Two-thirds of Sierra Leone's population are directly involved in subsistence agriculture. (from Sierra Leone)
Image 52Rice farming in Rolako (from Sierra Leone)
Image 59Isata Mahoi shown editing radio programmes in Talking Drum studio Freetown; she is also an actress in the Sierra Leone radio soap opera Atunda Ayenda (from Sierra Leone)
Image 60The 14 districts and 2 areas of Sierra Leone (from Sierra Leone)
Image 61Sierra Leone electricity production by source (from Sierra Leone)
Image 62Sierra Leone's total population, from 1961 to 2013 (from Sierra Leone)
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