Timbuktu: a guide to Mali's legendary desert city

A note before you plan

Timbuktu is remote and sits in northern Mali, where armed groups operate and where the city has faced blockades, attacks and shelling in recent years. Kidnapping of foreigners is a serious threat. Every major government advises against all travel. This guide explains the city's history and heritage; please read your government's current advice before considering any trip.

Why Timbuktu is legendary

Founded by Tuareg herders around the 12th century, Timbuktu grew rich at the meeting point of camel caravans from the Sahara and boats on the Niger. Gold, salt, cloth and books passed through it. Under the Mali Empire, especially after Mansa Musa's famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, and later under the Songhai Empire, it became a centre of Islamic learning with thousands of students.

For Europeans, who could not reach it for centuries, Timbuktu became a byword for the end of the world. The explorer René Caillié returned from it in 1828; Alexander Gordon Laing had reached it two years earlier but was killed on the way back.

The mosques

• **Djinguereber Mosque**: built around 1327 on the orders of Mansa Musa and designed, by tradition, by the Andalusian poet and architect Abu Ishaq es Saheli. It is the oldest and most famous of the city's mosques.
• **Sankoré Mosque**: the heart of the old university, where scholars taught law, astronomy, medicine and theology.
• **Sidi Yahia Mosque**: built in the 15th century and named after a revered scholar.

All three are part of the UNESCO site, which has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2012.

The manuscripts

Timbuktu's families kept hundreds of thousands of manuscripts on religion, law, science, poetry and history, some dating back to the 13th century. The **Ahmed Baba Institute** holds a major public collection. In 2012 and 2013, during the occupation of the city, librarians and families smuggled most manuscripts to Bamako in secret, one of the great heritage rescues of our time. Much of the collection is still kept in Bamako, and many items have been digitised and can be viewed online.

Destruction and rebuilding

During the 2012 occupation, armed groups destroyed many of the city's mausoleums of saints. Local masons rebuilt them with support from UNESCO, and the work was completed in 2015. In 2016 the International Criminal Court convicted a member of the armed group for the destruction, the first case to treat attacks on cultural heritage as a war crime.

Other sights

The houses where René Caillié, Heinrich Barth and Gordon Laing stayed are marked with plaques, and the **Flame of Peace** monument commemorates the 1996 burning of weapons that ended an earlier Tuareg rebellion. The **Festival au Désert**, once held near Timbuktu, has not taken place there for many years.

Getting there

Timbuktu has no safe overland route at present, and flights have been extremely limited. Anyone with essential reasons to go should take advice from their organisation or embassy.

Seeing Timbuktu from home

You can explore Timbuktu without travelling. Many manuscripts have been digitised by libraries and cultural projects, the UNESCO site page has photographs and history, and books and documentaries tell the story of the city and its rescued libraries.