Koloni

Koloni
Village
Koloni Location in Mali
Coordinates: 12°46′5″N 5°19′40″W / 12.76806°N 5.32778°WCoordinates: 12°46′5″N 5°19′40″W / 12.76806°N 5.32778°W
Country	Mali
Region	Sikasso Region
Cercle	Koutiala Cercle
Commune	Niantaga
Elevation	312 m (1,024 ft)
Time zone	GMT (UTC+0)

Koloni is a village and administrative centre (chef-lieu) of the commune of Niantaga in the Cercle of Koutiala in the Sikasso Region of southern Mali.^[1] The village is 45 km north-northeast of Koutiala.

The French explorer René Caillié stopped at Koloni on 21 February 1828 on his journey to Timbuktu. He was travelling with a caravan transporting kola nuts to Djenné. In his book Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo published in 1830 he wrote:

At ten in the morning we arrived at Coloni, a little village situated in a beautiful, fertile and well cultivated plain, surrounded by a great number of large bombases. ... The village of Coloni, which is surrounded by two mud walls, contains a population of about four hundred, consisting of Foulahs, Bambaras, and Mandingoes: it is shaded by large mimosas and some bombaces.^[2][3]

References

1. Communes de la Région de Sikasso (PDF) (in French), Ministère de l’administration territoriale et des collectivités locales, République du Mali, archived from the original on 19 September 2012.
2. Caillié 1830, pp. 428-429.
3. Viguier 2008, p. 63.

Sources

• Caillié, René (1830). Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; and across the Great Desert, to Morocco, performed in the years 1824-1828 (Volume 1). London: Colburn & Bentley.
• Viguier, Pierre (2008). Sur les Traces de René Caillié: Le Mali de 1828 Revisité. Versailles, France: Quae. ISBN 978-2-7592-0271-3..