Republic of the Niger
Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria to the south, Benin and Burkina Faso to the southwest, Mali to the west and Algeria to the northwest. It covers a land area of almost 1.27 million km2 (490,000 mi2), making it the sixth-largest country in Africa and the second-largest landlocked nation in Africa behind Chad. Over 80% of its land area lies in the Sahara. Its predominantly Muslim population of about 29 million lives mostly in clusters in the south and west of the country.