Distillers Country guides / Mali
Mali
A one-page guide to Mali for the spirits trade: the country, its people, its economy and how it drinks.
At a glance
- Capital
- Bamako
- Official languages
- 13 national languages incl. Bambara, Fula, Songhai, Soninke, Tamasheq; French is the de facto working language
- Currency
- West African CFA franc (XOF)
- Time zone
- UTC+0 (GMT)
- Area
- 1,240,190 km²
People
- Population
- 25.2 million (2025)
- Population growth
- 2.9% a year
- Living in towns and cities
- 32.2%
- Aged under 15
- 45.8%
- Aged 65 and over
- 2.4%
- Life expectancy
- 60.7 years
Economy
- GDP
- US$30.1 billion (2025)
- GDP per person
- US$1,193 (2025)
- Economic growth
- 5.6% (2025)
- Inflation
- 3.3% (2025)
Climate
Hot desert in the north, hot semi-arid in the centre, tropical wet-and-dry in the south. Very high temperatures year-round; the southern rainy season runs late April to early October. Landlocked, so cargo moves overland via coastal West African ports.
Alcohol
- Legal drinking age
- No national law restricting alcohol sales to minors (per Wikipedia Legal drinking age introduction)
- Alcohol per adult a year
- 4.3 litres of pure alcohol (2019)
- What people drink
- Beer 2.7%, wine 0.2%, spirits 0.4%, other 96.7% (2019)
Sources: World Bank (population, economy and demographics), WHO Global Health Observatory (alcohol per adult and drinking mix); Legal drinking age; Mali (Wikipedia); World Bank country data; WHO Global status report on alcohol and health 2024 (via Wikipedia table); UN Comtrade public API, HS 2208. Figures are the latest each source publishes; the year is shown beside each one.