The land that is now Guinea either bordered or was situated within a series of historic African empires before the French arrived in the 1890s and claimed the terrain as part of colonial
French West Africa. Guinea declared independence from France on 2 October 1958. From independence until the
presidential election of 2010, Guinea was governed by multiple
autocratic rulers.
West African empires and kingdoms What is now Guinea sat on the fringes of various West African empires. The earliest, the
Ghana Empire, grew on trade and ultimately fell after repeated incursions of the
Almoravids. It was in this period that Islam first arrived in the region by way of North African traders. The
Sosso Empire came and stayed from the 12th to 13th centuries; later, the
Mali Empire came when
Soundiata Kéïta defeated the Sosso ruler
Soumangourou Kanté at the
Battle of Kirina in . The Mali Empire was ruled by
Mansa (Emperors), including
Kankou Moussa, who made a
hajj to Mecca in 1324. After his reign, the Mali Empire began to decline and was ultimately supplanted by its
vassal states in the 15th century. The
Songhai Empire expanded its power in about 1460. It continued to prosper until a civil war, over succession, followed the death of
Askia Daoud in 1582. The empire
fell to invaders from
Morocco in 1591, but the kingdom later split into smaller kingdoms. After the fall of some of the West African empires, various kingdoms existed in what is now Guinea.
Fulani Muslims migrated to
Futa Jallon in Central Guinea, and established an Islamic state from 1727 to 1896 with a written constitution and alternate rulers. The
Wassoulou Empire (1878–1898) was led by
Samori Toure in the predominantly
Malinké area of what is now upper Guinea and southwestern
Mali. It moved to
Ivory Coast before being occupied by the French.
Colony European traders competed for the Cape trade from the 17th century onward and made inroads earlier. Guinea's colonial period began with French military penetration into the area, and its establishment as a colony on 17 December 1891. As a result of various troubles, France occupied Timbo, the capital of Fouta, in 1896, and a definitive treaty was signed in 1897. The defeat of the armies of
Samori Touré, Mansa (or Emperor) of the
Ouassoulou state and leader of Malinké descent, in 1898 gave France control of what today is Guinea and adjacent areas. The boundaries of the South Rivers were fixed in 1899. However, the operation was leaked, and soon, the Guinean was issuing a number of official complaints.
Post-colonial Under Touré's rule In 1960, Touré declared the
Democratic Party of Guinea the country's only legal political party, and for the next 24 years, the government and PDG were one. Touré was re-elected unopposed to four 7-year terms as president, and every 5 years voters were presented with a single list of PDG candidates for the National Assembly. On 22 November 1970, Portuguese forces from neighbouring
Portuguese Guinea staged
Operation Green Sea, a raid on Conakry by several hundred exiled Guinean opposition forces. Among their goals, the Portuguese military wanted to kill or capture Sekou Touré due to his support of
PAIGC, an independence movement and rebel group that had carried out attacks inside Portuguese Guinea from their bases in Guinea. After some fighting, the Portuguese-backed forces retreated. Guinea was elected as a non-permanent member of the
UN Security Council 1972–73. In 1977, a declining economy and a ban on all private economic transactions led to the
Market Women's Revolt, a series of anti-government riots started by women working in Conakry's
Madina Market. Touré vacillated from supporting the Soviet Union to supporting the United States. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw some economic reforms. After the election of
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing as French president, trade increased and the two countries exchanged diplomatic visits.
Under Conté's rule Sékou Touré died on 26 March 1984 after a heart operation in the United States, and was replaced by Prime Minister
Louis Lansana Beavogui, who was to serve as interim president, pending new elections. PDG was due to elect a new leader on 3 April 1984. Under the constitution, that person would have been the only candidate for president. Hours before that meeting, Colonels
Lansana Conté and
Diarra Traoré seized power in a
bloodless coup. Conté assumed the role of president, with Traoré serving as prime minister, until December. welcoming
Ahmed Sékou Touré outside the White House, Washington, D.C., 1979 Conté denounced the previous regime's record on human rights, releasing 250 political prisoners and encouraging approximately 200,000 more to return from exile. He made explicit the turn away from socialism. In 1992, Conté announced a return to civilian rule, with a presidential poll in 1993, followed by elections to parliament in 1995 (in which his party—the
Party of Unity and Progress—won 71 of 114 seats). In September 2001, the opposition leader
Alpha Condé was imprisoned for endangering state security and pardoned 8 months later. Subsequently, he spent time in exile in France. In 2001, Conté organised and won a referendum to lengthen the presidential term, and in 2003, he began his third term after elections were boycotted by the opposition. In January 2005, Conté survived a suspected assassination attempt while making a public appearance in Conakry. His opponents claimed that he was a "tired dictator", whose departure was inevitable, whereas his supporters believed that he was winning a battle with dissidents. According to
Foreign Policy, Guinea was in danger of becoming a
failed state. In 2000, Guinea suffered as rebels crossed the borders from
Liberia and
Sierra Leone. Some thought that the country was headed towards a civil war. Conté blamed neighbouring leaders for coveting Guinea's natural resources, and these claims were denied. In 2003, Guinea agreed to plans with her neighbours to tackle the insurgents. The
2007 Guinean general strike resulted in the appointment of a new prime minister.
Political violence and Ebola outbreak Conté remained in power until his death on 23 December 2008. Several hours after his death,
Moussa Dadis Camara seized control in a
coup, declaring himself head of a
military junta. Protests against the coup became violent, and 157 people were killed when, on 28 September 2009, the junta ordered its soldiers to attack people gathered to protest Camara's attempt to become president. The soldiers went on a rampage of rape, mutilation, and murder, which caused some foreign governments to withdraw their support for the new regime. On 3 December 2009, an aide shot Camara during a dispute over the rampage in September. Camara went to Morocco for medical care. Vice-president (and defence minister)
Sékouba Konaté flew from
Lebanon to run the country. After meeting in
Ouagadougou on 13 and 14 January 2010, Camara, Konaté, and
Blaise Compaoré, President of
Burkina Faso, produced a formal statement of 12 principles promising a return of Guinea to civilian rule within six months. The presidential election of 27 June brought allegations of fraud, and a second election was held on 7 November. Voter turnout was "high", and the elections went "relatively smoothly".
Alpha Condé, leader of the opposition party
Rally of the Guinean People (RGP), won the election, promising to reform the security sector and review mining contracts. In February 2013,
political violence erupted after street protests over the transparency of the upcoming
May elections. The protests were fuelled by the opposition coalition's decision to step down from the elections in protest of the lack of transparency in the preparations for the elections. Nine people were killed during the protests, and around 220 were injured. Some deaths and injuries were caused by security forces using live ammunition on protesters. The violence led to ethnic clashes between the
Malinke and
Fula, who supported and opposed President Condé, respectively. On 26 March 2013, the opposition party backed out of negotiations with the government over the election, saying that the government had not respected them, and had broken all agreements. against the rule of
Alpha Condé On 25 March 2014, the
World Health Organization stated that
Guinea's Ministry of Health had reported
an outbreak of
Ebola virus disease in Guinea. This initial outbreak had 86 cases, including 59 deaths. By 28 May, there were 281 cases, with 186 deaths. It is believed that the first case was Emile Ouamouno, a two-year-old boy in the village of
Meliandou. He fell ill on 2 December 2013 and died on 6 December. On 18 September 2014, eight members of an Ebola education health care team
were murdered by villagers in the town of
Womey. As of 1 November 2015, there had been 3,810 cases and 2,536 deaths in Guinea.
Mass civil unrest and violent protests broke out against the rule of Alpha Conde on 14 October 2019, against constitutional changes. More than 800 were killed in clashes. After the
2020 Guinean presidential election, Alpha Condé's election to a third term was challenged by the opposition, who accused him of fraud. Condé claimed a
constitutional referendum from March 2020 allowed him to run despite the 2-term limit.
Under military rule On 5 September 2021, after hours of gunfire near the presidential palace, Lieutenant Colonel
Mamady Doumbouya seized control of state television and declared that President
Alpha Conde's government had been dissolved and the nation's borders closed. By the evening, the putschists had declared control of all of Conakry and the country's armed forces. According to
Guinée Matin, by 6 September, the military fully controlled the state administration and started to replace the civil administration with its military counterpart. The
United Nations,
European Union,
African Union,
ECOWAS (which suspended Guinea's membership), and
La Francophonie denounced the coup, and called for President Condé's unconditional release. Similar responses came from some neighbouring and Western countries (including the
United States), and from
China (which relies on Guinea for half of its aluminium ore, facilitated by its connections to President Condé). On 11 May 2023, at least seven people were shot dead in anti-government demonstrations in cities across Guinea. The anti-government movement became involved in peaceful protests and called on rulers to end military rule in Guinea and transition the country to democracy. On 18 December 2023, an
explosion occurred at the country's main oil depot in Conakry, killing 24 people and causing extensive fuel shortages in the country in the following weeks. Existing civil and economic unrest in the country temporarily worsened as a result, with several confrontations between protestors and police in Conakry, increased fuel and travel costs, and general price inflation throughout the country. Doumbouya initially set 31 December 2024 as the deadline to launch a democratic transition. But he missed the deadline, leading to protests and criticism from activists and the opposition. Under pressure, he promised in his New Year’s message that a decree for the constitutional referendum would be signed. Authorities further added that all elections would be held in 2025, without initially committing to a particular date. A
constitutional referendum was held on 21 September 2025, which established a new constitution replacing the one approved in
2020 and marked the first step towards civilian rule. In May 2025, a
presidential election was announced for December and held on 28 December 2025. On 28 December 2025, Guineans voted in the first
election since the 2021 coup d'etat. There were 8 other candidates in the race as well as
Mamady Doumbouya. On 5 January 2026, Mamady Doumbouya’s landslide election win was validated by the Supreme Court. He had received 86.72% of the votes. Following the election, ECOWAS unsuspended Guinea. == Geography ==