Country of the World The Gambia

About the country The Gambia, its location, size, population, leaders and rulers.

NATIONS AND THEIR RULERS

THE GAMBIA

Size: 4,361 sq. mi. (11,295 sq. km.).

Population: 562,000.

On the west coast of West Africa, Gambia, the smallest nation on the continent, is a crooked finger of land straddling the Gambia River and poking into the lower third of Senegal. It gained notoriety in 1977 as the ancestral land of Alex Haley, author of Roots. Gambia has been an independent republic within the British Commonwealth since 1970. Peanuts represent 95% of the nation's exports.