Overview of Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a West African country. The country was named after the 15th-century Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, the first European to see and map Freetown Harbour. Serra Lyoa (“Lion Mountains”) was the original Portuguese name for the range of hills surrounding the harbor. Freetown, the capital, has one of the world’s largest natural harbors.

Sierra Leone is a mining center, despite the fact that the majority of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture. Its soil contains diamonds, gold, bauxite, and rutile (titanium dioxide). Internal conflict crippled the country beginning in the late 1980s and culminated in a brutal civil war that lasted from 1991 to 2002. Sierra Leone’s government has been tasked with rebuilding the country’s physical and social infrastructure while also fostering reconciliation since the war’s end.