What was Timbuktu famous for?
City of Golden Books
What was Timbuktu famous for?
"Timbuktu? That's not a real place!" That's what people used to say when someone mentioned this city. It sounded like a made-up name from a fairy tale. But Timbuktu was absolutely real — and for hundreds of years, it was one of the most famous cities in the entire world.
Timbuktu sits at the edge of the Sahara Desert in West Africa, in what's now the country of Mali. Around the year 1100, it started as a seasonal camp where nomads would stop to trade. But it had something special: it was right where the desert met the Niger River. Camels from the north could meet boats from the south.
