Maritime Guinea (), also known as Lower Guinea, is one of the four natural regions of

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

. It is located in the west of the country, between the Atlantic Ocean and the

Fouta Djallon Fouta Djallon (, , ; ) is a Highland (geography), highland region in the center of Guinea, roughly corresponding with Middle Guinea, in West Africa. Etymology The Fulani people call the region Fouta Jallon Kingdom, Fuuta-Jaloo ( ) in the Pular l ...

plateau.

Conakry Conakry ( , ; ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guinea. A port city, it serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea. Its population as of the 2014 Guinea census was 1,660,973. The current population of C ...

, Guinea's capital and largest city, is located in the region.

Geography

Maritime Guinea includes the Atlantic coast and coastal plain. The coast is indented with rias, or drowned river valleys, that form inlets, tidal marshes,

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

forests, and estuaries, and numerous offshore islands.

occupies

Tombo Island Tombo Island is an island in the Atlantic Ocean at the tip of the Guinean Kaloum Peninsula, approximately east of the Loos Islands. The island is the site where the capital Conakry was built on. It is the site of the old city of Conakry while ...

and the adjacent Kaloum Peninsula. The region is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea Bissau to the northwest, the Fouta Djallon, also known as Middle Guinea, to the northeast and east, and

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

to the south. The region is a gentle coastal plain, between 50 and 80 km (30 and 40 miles) wide, and wider in the south than the north. the

plateau rises from the plain, and several rivers, including the Fatala, Konkouré, and Kolenté, originate in the Fouta Djallon and flow west to empty into the Atlantic. The base rocks of the region are

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and

gneiss Gneiss (pronounced ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. This rock is formed under p ...

Laterite Laterite is a soil type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by intensive and prolo ...

, a red soil rich in

iron oxide An iron oxide is a chemical compound composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Ferric oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of which is rust. Iron ...

s and

aluminum hydroxide Aluminium hydroxide, , is found as the mineral gibbsite (also known as hydrargillite) and its three much rarer polymorphs: bayerite, doyleite, and nordstrandite. Aluminium hydroxide is amphoteric, i.e., it has both basic and acidic properti ...

, and sandstone gravel are the dominant soil types.

Climate

The climate of Guinea is tropical, with a six-month dry season (November through March) and a wet season (April through October). The heaviest rainfall comes in June, with the arrival of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Average rainfall at Conakry is about 4,300 mm (170 inches) a year, and the average annual temperature is about 27 °C (low 80s F)."Guinea". britannica.com. Accessed 2 October 2015
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Ecoregions

* Guinean forest-savanna mosaic covers most of the region, extending north into Guinea Bissau and Senegal, and east through northern Sierra Leone and Upper Guinea. * Western Guinean lowland forests occupies the area around Conakry and south, extending into coastal Sierra Leone, Liberia, and western Côte d'Ivoire. * Guinean mangroves, in the coastal estuaries. Enclaves extend north into Guinea Bissau, Gambia and Senegal, and southeast through Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d'Ivoire.

People

Peoples of Maritime Guinea include the Baga, who live along the coast; the Susu in the southern part of the region around Conakry and into adjacent Sierra Leone; and the

Fulani The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people are an ethnic group in Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, ...

in the north.

References

{{Authority control Regions of Guinea Geography of Guinea