29 Facts About Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a tropical country on West Africa's Atlantic coast known for its wildlife and national parks.

The forested, sparsely populated archipelago of Bijagós is a biosphere reserve.

Its main island, Bubaque, is part of the Orango Islands National Park, which is a saltwater hippos' habitat.

Bissau, the capital on the mainland, is a port with Portuguese colonial buildings in its old city centre.

Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa that borders Guinea and Senegal on the North Atlantic Ocean.

Guinea-Bissau gets its name from the West African Guinea region. To distinguish itself from its neighbour Guinea, the country uses the name of its capital, Bissau. 

Guinea is the name of four countries in the world: Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Equatorial Guinea in Africa, and Papua New Guinea in Oceania and Asia.

Despite its popularity, the origin of the name Guinea is unknown. Some believe it is a corruption of a Berber word that means "land of the blacks," while others believe it is derived from the Tuareg word aginaw. Others believe it may refer to Djenné, a Mali trading city. Furthermore, Portuguese sailors used "Guiné" to describe what is now Senegal in the 15th century, and by the 18th century, Europeans used "Guinea" to refer to much of West Africa.

Portuguese Guinea became Guinea-Bissa in West Africa, Spanish Guinea became Equatorial Guinea, and French Guinea became Guinea.

Guinea-Bissau was once a sub-kingdom known as Gabu, and was ruled by the Mali Empire.

The Portuguese arrived in the region in 1446-47 and took control of what would become Guinea-Bissau as part of the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands. The region became an important slave trade outpost.

Following a guerrilla war, Guinea-Bissau declared independence from Portugal in 1973. In 1974, the country was formally recognised as an independent nation.

Guinea-flag Bissau's has two horizontal yellow and green stripes and a vertical red stripe with a black star. Yellow represents the northern savannas, green the southern forests, red the struggle for independence, and the blag star the African people.

Guinea-Bissau has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world. It had the ninth-lowest at 58.0 years as of 2021. The average global life expectancy is 72.6 years.

Guinea-Bissau has experienced a series of military coups (in 1980, 2003, 2010, and 2012), a civil war in 1998/99, and the assassination of its president, Joao Bernardo Vieira, in 2009.

As a result, Guinea-Bissau is one of the world's poorest countries in terms of GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP). It was ranked 14th-poorest in 2021. It is also one of the world's least developed countries.

Guinea-Bissau has struggled to stop the flow of drugs, particularly cocaine, over the last two decades. Guinea-Bissau has become a drug-trafficking hub for cocaine flown or shipped from Latin America to Europe and North America, according to the UN.

Guinea-Bissau has some of the worst air pollution in the world. It was ranked the sixth-worst country for air pollution as of 2021, based on the number of deaths (161.8) per 100,000 people.

Nearly 1,000 hooded vultures died from mass poisoning in Guinea-Bissau in 2020, pushing the endangered species to the brink of extinction in Africa. The birds were most likely poisoned by strychnine, which was used to control the feral dog population.

Bissau, the country's capital, was founded by the Portuguese in the 17th century but did not become the official capital of modern-day Guinea-Bissau until 1942, when it was relocated from the island city of Bolama.

The Portuguese quickly abandoned the former capital Bolama, which has since fallen into decay and ruin.

The people of Guinea-Bissau are among the world's lightest smokers. According to the sixth edition of the Tobacco Atlas, Guinea-Bissau smokes the second-fewest cigarettes per capita (25.28) after Brunei.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the few African countries where traditional ancestral shrines can still be found. The totem-like wood-carved structures are meant to bridge the gap between the human and spirit worlds.

On Uno Island in Guinea-Bissau, at some point in their lives, boys must go into the forest for several months to live alone in a ceremony called Vaca Bruto, which means 'strong cow'. The rite of passage is supposed to transform the boys into men, but it only occurs when it "feels right," rather than at a specific age or date.

Guinea-Bissau is one of 27 countries without a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It does have one property on the Tentative List of sites to be submitted for nomination (see below).

The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Bijagós Archipelago is located off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. The archipelago consists of 88 islands and is home to a wide range of mammals, reptiles, birds, and fish.

The Bijagós archipelago is also one of the few places in the world where saltwater hippos can be seen, especially on the island of Orango (which is also a national park). The hippos spend the day in freshwater lagoons and then return to the sea at night to bathe and disinfect their skin.

Also in the region, the island of Poilo is the most important green turtle nesting site in Africa, and the third most important in the world after Costa Rica and Ascension. Up to 30,000 turtles return to the island's beach to lay their eggs from June to January.

Guinea-Bissau briefly had two presidents and two prime ministers in 2020. Following contested elections, winner Umaro Cissoko Embalo swore in a new leader while the current parliament appointed a rival interim president.