Mali in other languages: exonyms, Bamako and the regions in Bambara

Mali, Malí, Malis: one short name

In French the state is the République du Mali, in Bambara Mali ka Fasojamana; both keep the short form Mali, and so does English. Malian is malien in French. Bambara spells the capital Bamakɔ, with the open vowel ɔ that French spelling does not have, and Koulikoro becomes Kulikɔrɔ.

A name of four letters leaves other languages little to change. Spanish, Galician and Icelandic add an accent, Malí; Lithuanian adds its ending, Malis; Esperanto makes it Malio; and Vietnamese splits it into syllables, Ma-li. Arabic and Pashto write مالي (Mālī), Hebrew מלי or מאלי, Chinese 馬里 (Mǎlǐ), Japanese マリ (Mari), with r for l, and Korean 말리 (Malli).

Until the 2023 constitution French was the one official language and Bambara one of the national languages. Article 31 of that constitution makes the national languages the official languages, without naming them, and keeps French as the working language.

From eight regions to ten, and the reform of 2023

The older list counted eight regions and the district of Bamako. Two more regions were created by a law of 2012 and began to work in 2016: Ménaka, until then a cercle of Gao Region, and Taoudénit, partitioned from Tombouctou. ISO 3166-2 gives them the codes ML-9 and ML-10.

A further reform in 2023 divided the country into 19 regions plus Bamako, with new regions such as Bougouni, Kita, Nioro and San. ISO 3166-2 has not taken this step yet, so the table follows the ten regions the standard still lists.