Timbuktu

A city of central Mali near the Niger River northeast of Bamako. Founded in the 11th century by the Tuareg, it became a major trading center (primarily for gold and salt) by the 14th century. Timbuktu was sacked in 1593 by invaders from Morocco and fell to the French in 1894. Population: 32,400.

Unlike Shangri-La, Xanadu, and Atlantis, the fabled city of Timbuktu really exists. It remains remote from the rest of the world, but its former fame is remote now too. There is not much to attract a present-day traveler to the sleepy town of barely 20,000 located way up the Niger River, at the edge of the Sahara Desert, in the West African republic of Mali. Hundreds of years ago, however, that oasis was an important crossroads for caravans from the desert and merchants from all over West Africa. Timbuktu was known for its wealth and for its learning; it was the starting point for Muslims in western Africa making the pilgrimage to Mecca, and it was a mecca of Muslim scholarship.

The fame of Timbuktu first spread far and wide when it became part of the Mali Empire in the fourteenth century. Sultan Mansa Musa, the Mali ruler, attracted the outside world's notice in 1324 with his opulent pilgrimage from Timbuktu to Mecca and back. He had tens of thousands of attendants and fifteen thousand camels carrying food, salt, perfume, and gold. After that, the wealth of Timbuktu seemed truly fabulous.

In Europe and the Middle East, the city's remoteness enhanced its charm. In the English language, as the city's prosperity became only a distant memory, the name Timbuktu came to stand for any remote place, a usage we find as long ago as 1863.

We owe the name to the Tuareg people who founded the town in about 1100. They spoke a language known as Timbuktu Tamasheq, still used by about a quarter of a million people in Mali. It is from the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. No other words from Timbuktu Tamasheq are found in English; it's too remote.

For more information on Timbuktu, visit Britannica.com.

City in central Mali, in western Africa, near the Niger River.

• By the fourteenth century, it was famous for its gold trade.

Dansk (Danish)
n. - Timbuktu

Deutsch (German)
n. - Timbuktu

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮טימבוקטו‬

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