The Gambia
Name
| Official name | Republic of The Gambia — with the capital-T article, the one country whose formal English name begins with "The" |
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| Former names | The Gambia Colony and Protectorate (1843–1965); the Islamic Republic of The Gambia, so styled by Jammeh from December 2015 to January 2017 |
| Demonym | Gambian |
| Meaning of the name | The river's name — from the Mandinka Kambra or Kambaa, heard by the Portuguese in the 1450s as Gâmbia |
| Motto | "Progress, Peace, Prosperity" — on the coat of arms |
| Nickname | The Smiling Coast of Africa |
Quick facts
| Capital | Banjul — Bathurst until 1973 — on St. Mary's Island; about 35,000; the smallest capital on the African mainland |
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| Largest towns | Serekunda, about 350,000; Brikama; Bakau; Banjul; Farafenni; Lamin; Basse Santa Su |
| Official language | English; Mandinka, Wolof, Fula, Jola, Serahule and Serer the national languages |
| Currency | Dalasi — ISO code GMD, D; 100 bututs; about 70 to the U.S. dollar |
| Time zone | Greenwich Mean Time, UTC±0, all year |
| Calling code | +220 |
| Internet domain | .gm |
| ISO 3166 codes | GM · GMB · 270 |
| Vehicle registration code | WAG |
| Driving side | Right — switched from the left in 1965 |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug type G — the British three-pin |
| Independence | 18 February 1965, from the United Kingdom — Dawda Jawara prime minister; the republic 24 April 1970 |
| National days | 18 February, Independence Day; 22 July, the anniversary of the 1994 coup, dropped as a holiday in 2017; 1 May; the Islamic and Christian feasts; 24 April, Republic Day |
| Constitution | 16 January 1997 — Jammeh's constitution, in force since 1997 with amendments; the draft of 2020 rejected by the National Assembly on 22 September 2020 and the second draft rejected in July 2024, both over presidential term limits |
| Population | 2,417,483 at the census of 2024; about 2.6 million (UN, 2025 est.) |
| Area | 11,300 km² (4,363 sq mi) — land 10,120 km², water 1,180 km²; the smallest country on the African mainland; 320 km long, under 50 km wide |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | Three horizontal bands of red, blue and green, the blue edged in white — the sun over the savanna, the river through the land, the forests and farms, and the white of peace and unity; designed by Louis Thomasi, hoisted at independence on 18 February 1965 and never changed, with no political meaning in its colors by design.Flag of the Gambia |
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| Coat of arms | A shield with a crossed axe and hoe for the Mandinka and the Fula, supported by two lions holding an axe and a hoe, under an oil palm and a helmet, over the motto — granted 18 November 1964 |
| National anthem | "For The Gambia Our Homeland" — words by Virginia Julia Howe, music by Jeremy Frederick Howe on the Mandinka song "Foday Kaba Dumbuya"; adopted 1965 |
| National motto | "Progress, Peace, Prosperity" |
| National colors | Red, blue, green and white |
| National animal | None designated — the lions of the arms; the hippos and crocodiles of the river widely cited |
| National dish | Domoda — the groundnut stew; benachin, the one-pot rice; yassa; widely cited |
| Symbol status | The flag, arms and anthem are fixed by law; the animal and dishes are widely cited, none designated |
Geography
| Location | West Africa — the valley of the lower Gambia River, a strip within Senegal opening on the Atlantic; the smallest and one of the flattest countries of the continent |
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| Land border | 749 km (465 mi) with Senegal — the only neighbor, on three sides; the border drawn in 1889 at the range of the river's gunboats, by the story |
| Coastline | 80 km (50 mi) |
| Highest point | An unnamed point of 53 m (174 ft) in the east — the lowest high point of any African state |
| Lowest point | The Atlantic Ocean, 0 m |
| Mean elevation | 34 m (112 ft) |
| The river | The Gambia — 1,120 km (700 mi) from the Fouta Djallon of Guinea, about 480 km within the country; navigable to Basse and beyond; the estuary 15 km wide at Banjul; salt water 200 km inland in the dry season; the Senegambia Bridge across it since 2019 |
| Terrain | The floodplain of the river with its mangroves and bolongs, the creeks; the low plateaus of sandstone on either side; the beaches of the coast |
| Climate | Tropical — the wet season from June to October, the dry from November to May with the harmattan; about 1,000 mm of rain a year, less inland |
| Natural hazards | Drought; the flooding of the river and the coast; the sea eating the beaches of the resorts; the salt creeping up the river |
| Natural resources | Fish, the farmland, the beaches; ilmenite and zircon sands; oil sought offshore and not found |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 57%; forest about 48% by the FAO's count of woodland |
| National parks | Kiang West, the largest; the River Gambia National Park with the chimpanzees of the Baboon Islands; Niumi on the coast; Abuko, the first, 1968, at the capital's door; the Bao Bolong wetland; the Tanji bird reserve — some 560 bird species in the country |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 2 — Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites (2003), the fort of James Island in the river and the villages of Albreda and Juffureh; the Stone Circles of Senegambia (2006, shared), the megaliths of Wassu and Kerbatch |
| Administrative divisions | 5 regions — West Coast, Lower River, Central River, North Bank and Upper River — and the cities of Banjul and Kanifing; 43 districts under chiefs |
People
| Population | 2,417,483 (census of 2024); about 2.6 million (2025 est.) |
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| Population density | About 240 per km² (620 per sq mi) — among the highest in Africa |
| Population growth | About 2.4% a year |
| Median age | About 18 years |
| Life expectancy | About 66 years |
| Fertility rate | About 4 births per woman |
| Urban population | About 65% — the Kanifing and West Coast sprawl around Banjul |
| Adult literacy | About 58% |
| Ethnic groups | Mandinka about 34%; Fula about 22%; Wolof about 12%; Jola about 11%; Serahule about 7%; Serer, Manjago, Bambara, Aku — the Creole descendants of freed slaves — and others (census of 2013) |
| Languages | Mandinka the most spoken; Wolof the language of the towns and the markets; Fula, Jola, Serahule; English in school and government; Arabic in the mosques |
| Religion | Sunni Muslim about 96%; Christian about 3% — Catholic and Anglican, the Aku among them; traditional beliefs |
| Human Development Index | 0.524 (2023 data, 2025 report) — low; about 170th of 193 |
| The "backway" | The young who leave by the Sahara and the sea for Europe — among the highest rates of irregular migration per head in Africa; the returns and the deaths at sea |
| Sport | Football — the Scorpions, at their first Africa Cup of Nations in 2021 and into the quarterfinals; wrestling, the traditional sport; athletics — Gina Bass |
| Diaspora | Some 150,000 abroad — in Spain, Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy and Senegal; remittances the largest income of the country |
Government
| Form of government | Presidential republic under the Constitution of 1997 — the president head of state and government, elected for five years without limit on the number of terms |
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| President | Adama Barrow (National People's Party), since 19 January 2017 — the third; a property developer and former security guard in London, born 15 February 1965 at Mankamang Kunda; the candidate of the 2016 coalition who beat Jammeh, sworn in at the embassy in Dakar; re-elected 4 December 2021 with 53.2% against Ousainou Darboe's 27.7% and Mama Kandeh's 12.3%, on a turnout of 89%; the founder of his own party in December 2019 after breaking with the UDP |
| Vice President | Muhammad B.S. Jallow, since 2023 — after Badara Joof, who died in office in January 2023 |
| The 2026 election | The presidential election set by the Independent Electoral Commission for 5 December 2026, announced 9 October 2025 — Barrow seeking a third term, allowed by the constitution of 1997 and denounced by the opposition as a broken promise; Ousainou Darboe of the United Democratic Party, the largest party, his main challenger, with Bakary Badjie and others among 24 registered parties; the parliamentary election on 10 April 2027; the vote by marbles dropped into drums painted with the candidates' pictures, the world's only such ballot |
| The constitution that never came | The draft of 2020, with a retroactive two-term limit that would have barred Barrow, rejected by his allies in the Assembly on 22 September 2020; the second draft of 2024, the retroactive clause removed, rejected in July 2024; the constitution of 1997 in force, and the third term open |
| Parliament | The National Assembly — 58 members, 53 elected for five years and 5 appointed by the president, one of them the speaker; elected 9 April 2022, the NPP the largest party |
| The Jammeh years | Lieutenant Yahya Jammeh's coup of 22 July 1994 against Jawara; twenty-two years of arbitrary rule — the killings, disappearances and torture found by the truth commission, the student massacre of 10 April 2000, the murder of the journalist Deyda Hydara in 2004, the fake AIDS cure, the witch hunts; the Commonwealth left in 2013, the Islamic Republic declared in 2015; his defeat on 1 December 2016 conceded and then refused; the ECOWAS intervention and his flight to Equatorial Guinea on 21 January 2017 |
| Truth and justice | The Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission of 2018–2021, which found 44 killings by the death squad and recommended the prosecution of Jammeh and 69 others; the Victims Reparations Act of November 2023 and the Reparations Commission sworn in on 11 April 2025, with 20 million dalasi a year against the 237 million recommended; the ECOWAS-backed hybrid tribunal approved December 2024 without a hearing by 2026; abroad, the Swiss conviction of the former interior minister Ousman Sonko in 2024 and the U.S. conviction of the Jungler Michael Sang Correa in 2025 |
| Legal system | Common law from England, with sharia for Muslim family law and customary law; the Supreme Court; the cadi courts |
| Regions | 5 and two cities, each region under a governor; the districts under chiefs, the seyfolu |
| Senegal | The neighbor on three sides — the Senegambia Confederation of 1982–1989 after Senegal's troops crushed the coup of 1981; the bridge of 2019; the Casamance conflict spilling across the southern border |
| United Nations | Member since 21 September 1965 |
| Memberships | The Commonwealth — left 2 October 2013 as "neo-colonial," rejoined 8 February 2018; ECOWAS; the African Union; the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, whose summit Banjul hosted in May 2024; the Non-Aligned Movement |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$2.7 billion (2025, IMF) |
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| GDP per capita | About US$1,000 (2025) |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$3,000 (2025) |
| GDP growth | About 5–6% a year (2023–25) |
| Economy by sector | Services about 60%, agriculture about 22%, industry about 15% |
| Currency | Dalasi (GMD) |
| Remittances | The largest source of income — about 20% of GDP, some US$500 million a year, from the diaspora in Europe and America |
| Tourism | The Smiling Coast — about 200,000 visitors a year, Britons, Dutch and Scandinavians on the winter beaches of Kololi and Kotu; the bird-watchers on the river; about 15% of GDP |
| Groundnuts | The old staple — peanuts on the sandy soils since the 1830s, once nearly the whole export; cashews, fish and hides beside them |
| Re-exports | Goods landed at Banjul and traded on to Senegal, Guinea and Mali — the port's trade |
| Public finances | Public debt about 70% of GDP; an IMF program since 2024; the OIC summit's roads and conference center of 2024 |
| Income classification | Low income (World Bank); a least developed country |
Transport & infrastructure
| Main airport | Banjul International Airport at Yundum — the winter charters from Europe |
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| Airline | No national carrier since Gambia International Airlines ceased; Brussels Airlines, Turkish, Royal Air Maroc and the charters |
| Main port | Banjul — the deep-water port on the estuary, the outlet for the re-export trade |
| Railways | None |
| Roads | About 3,700 km (2,300 mi), a fifth paved; the South Bank Road from Banjul to Basse; the North Bank Road; the OIC highways of 2024 |
| The river and the bridge | The ferries of Banjul–Barra and the crossings upriver; the Senegambia Bridge at Farafenni, 1.9 km, opened 21 January 2019 on the Trans-Gambia Highway, ending the ferry queues between the two halves of Senegal |
History in dates
| c. 1200 | The stone circles of Wassu — some as old as the 3rd century |
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| 13th–15th century | The Mali Empire; the Mandinka kingdoms of the river |
| 1455 | Cadamosto sails up the river for Portugal |
| 1661 | The English take James Island — Fort James |
| 1767 | Kunta Kinteh taken from Juffureh, by the Roots of Alex Haley |
| 1807 | Britain abolishes its slave trade; Bathurst founded 1816 to enforce it |
| 1843 | The Gambia Colony |
| 1889 | The borders with French Senegal drawn |
| 1965 | Independence, 18 February — Dawda Jawara |
| 1970 | The republic, 24 April |
| 1981 | The coup attempt of 30 July put down by Senegal |
| 1982–1989 | The Senegambia Confederation |
| 1994 | Jammeh's coup, 22 July |
| 2000 | The student massacre, 10 April |
| 2013 | The Commonwealth left, 2 October |
| 2016 | Barrow wins, 1 December; Jammeh refuses to go |
| 2017 | Barrow sworn in at Dakar, 19 January; Jammeh flies out, 21 January |
| 2018 | The Commonwealth rejoined, 8 February; the truth commission opens, October |
| 2019 | The Senegambia Bridge, 21 January |
| 2021 | Barrow re-elected, 4 December |
| 2024 | The OIC summit at Banjul, May; the draft constitution rejected, July; the census |
| 2025 | The Reparations Commission, 11 April; the election date set, 9 October |
| 2026 | The presidential election, 5 December |
Records & firsts
| The smallest country on mainland Africa | 11,300 km² |
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| The only country that votes with marbles | Since 1965 |
| The only country named "The" | The Gambia |
| A country around a river | 320 km long and never 50 km wide |
| The lowest high point in Africa | 53 m |
| Kunta Kinteh Island | The fort and the village of Roots |
| The Smiling Coast | About 560 bird species |
| One neighbor | Senegal, on three sides |
| A dictator removed by the ballot and a bridge | Jammeh, 2017, and the Senegambia Bridge, 2019 |
| The first change of power by vote | 1 December 2016 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of the Gambia?
The Republic of The Gambia — with the article, by the constitution, the one country in the world whose formal name in English begins with "The": the government has asked since 1964 that the country not be confused with Zambia, and the article is how it writes itself. The name is the river's, from the Mandinka Kambra or the Portuguese Gâmbia of the 1450s. It was a British colony from 1843, independent from 18 February 1965 and a republic from 24 April 1970.
What is the capital of the Gambia?
Banjul — Bathurst until 1973 — on St. Mary's Island at the mouth of the Gambia River, founded by the British in 1816 as a base against the slave trade, and with about 35,000 people the smallest capital on the African mainland; the arch of 1994 at its gate. Serekunda across the bridge, with about 350,000, is the largest town and the country's market; Brikama the town of the West Coast; Bakau and Kololi the resorts; Basse Santa Su the town of the far east.
How big is the Gambia, and how many people live there?
About 11,300 km² (4,363 sq mi) — the smallest country on the African mainland, a little smaller than Connecticut or Jamaica — a strip of land 320 km long and nowhere more than 50 km wide along the Gambia River, surrounded on three sides by Senegal and open to the Atlantic on 80 km of coast. The census of 2024 counted 2,417,483 people; the UN estimates about 2.6 million, a population that has doubled since 2000 and is among the densest in Africa.
What are the highest and lowest points of the Gambia?
An unnamed rise of 53 m (174 ft) near the eastern border — the country is among the flattest on earth, with the lowest high point of any state on the continent — and the Atlantic. The Gambia River, 1,120 km long from its source in Guinea's Fouta Djallon, runs about 480 km through the country and is navigable for most of it, its estuary at Banjul 15 km wide and its water salt for 200 km inland in the dry season.
What currency does the Gambia use?
The dalasi (ISO code GMD, D), of 100 bututs, issued by the Central Bank of The Gambia since 1971 in place of the Gambian pound, at about 70 to the U.S. dollar. Clocks keep Greenwich Mean Time, UTC±0, all year. Unlike its neighbors, and unusually for a former British colony, the Gambia drives on the right, having switched in 1965 to match Senegal.
Who governs the Gambia?
President Adama Barrow of the National People's Party, head of state and government since 19 January 2017, when he was sworn in at the Gambian embassy in Dakar while Yahya Jammeh, the dictator of twenty-two years, refused to leave after losing the election of December 2016 — and did leave two days later before an ECOWAS force. Elected as a one-term reformer, Barrow won a second term on 4 December 2021 with 53.2 percent and is seeking a third in the election of 5 December 2026, which the constitution of 1997, never replaced after the drafts of 2020 and 2024 failed, allows; Ousainou Darboe of the United Democratic Party is his main challenger. Gambians vote with marbles dropped into drums, the only country to do so; the parliamentary election follows on 10 April 2027.
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