BeninCapital: Porto-Novo. The government sits in Cotonou, the largest city. Independent from France since 1 August 1960, at first under the name Dahomey.
Burkina FasoCapital: Ouagadougou. Landlocked, with six neighbors. Independent from France since 1960, at first under the name Upper Volta.
Cape VerdeCapital: Praia. An island country of about 4,000 square kilometers. Independent from Portugal since 1975. Cabo Verde is accepted as a typed answer.
GhanaCapital: Accra. Independent from the United Kingdom since 6 March 1957. The colony was called the Gold Coast.
GuineaCapital: Conakry. Independent from France since 1958. That was two years before the other colonies of French West Africa.
Guinea-BissauCapital: Bissau. Declared independence from Portugal on 24 September 1973.
Ivory CoastCapital: Yamoussoukro, the official capital. Abidjan, the largest city, is the working seat of government, and both are accepted. Independent from France since 7 August 1960. Côte d'Ivoire is accepted as a typed name.
LiberiaCapital: Monrovia. Declared independence on 26 July 1847. That was more than a century before its neighbors.
MaliCapital: Bamako. Landlocked, with seven neighbors. Independent from France since 1960, at first joined with Senegal in the Mali Federation.
MauritaniaCapital: Nouakchott. Eleventh largest country in Africa. A little over one million square kilometers. Independent from France since 28 November 1960.
NigerCapital: Niamey. Landlocked, with seven neighbors. Sixth largest country in Africa. Independent from France since 3 August 1960.
NigeriaCapital: Abuja. Independent from the United Kingdom since 1 October 1960.
SenegalCapital: Dakar. Independent from France in 1960. First inside the Mali Federation and on its own from 20 August.
Sierra LeoneCapital: Freetown. Independent from the United Kingdom since 27 April 1961.
The GambiaCapital: Banjul. The smallest country on the African mainland. Independent from the United Kingdom since 18 February 1965.
TogoCapital: Lomé. Independent from France since 27 April 1960.
How this list was compiled: The 54 countries are the African member states of the United Nations, read off the member list at https://www.un.org/en/about-us/member-states, checked 2026-09-19. The five regions and which country sits in which: United Nations Statistics Division, Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49), https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/, checked 2026-09-19. Capitals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_in_Africa, checked 2026-09-19; Ciudad de la Paz as the capital of Equatorial Guinea since January 2026 and independence on 12 October 1968: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_Guinea, checked 2026-09-19. Areas and area ranks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_area, checked 2026-09-19. Landlocked countries, their neighbor counts, Lesotho as one of three countries inside a single neighbor, Ethiopia as the most populous landlocked country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landlocked_country, checked 2026-09-19. Dates of independence and colonial names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonisation_of_Africa, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_national_independence and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_date_of_formation, checked 2026-09-19; the 17 colonies that became independent in 1960: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_Africa, checked 2026-09-19. Sinai counted with Asia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_in_Asia, checked 2026-09-19. Sub-Saharan Africa is the M49 grouping of the same name: the 48 countries of Eastern, Middle, Southern and Western Africa, which leaves out the six of Northern Africa. Tanzania: Dodoma is the capital and Dar es Salaam the former capital and largest city (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodoma, checked 2026-09-19); the Africa list above still prints the older wording. Ivory Coast, Benin and Burundi, the official capital and the second city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_multiple_capitals, checked 2026-09-19; Abidjan and Bujumbura are accepted as typed capitals, Cotonou is not. Gitega as the political capital since 16 January 2019, and Bujumbura as the largest city and economic capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitega and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundi, checked 2026-09-19. Cotonou and Abidjan as largest cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast, checked 2026-09-19. Where two sources gave different days for one event, only the year is stated. Two shapes of the drawing that the points file flags as disputed are not on this list and are never asked. Positions in the hints were read off the drawing. Hints and detail lines written for this site. Licence: own work
The drawing: Drawn for this site from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_50m_admin_0_countries_lakes (scale 1:50,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_50m_admin_0_countries_lakes.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19. Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection centred on 1°N 17°E. Outlines simplified; small islands are left out. One place is too small to draw at this scale and shown as a dot. Licence: public domain (Natural Earth terms of use: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/)
How it works
This blank map of West Africa numbers its 16 countries, from Mauritania, Senegal and the islands of Cape Verde to Niger and Nigeria. The rest of Africa is drawn without numbers.
Read the full guide
Blank, numbered or named
The sheet opens blank. Choose Numbered to put a number on each of the 16 countries of West Africa, or Named for their names, then press Print this map; the answer key prints on its own sheet.
Small countries on the coast
The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde are too small to write inside, so each has a ring joined by a line. The Gambia sits inside Senegal along its river, with only a short coast. Cape Verde lies out in the Atlantic, west of Senegal.
Work along the coast from Mauritania round to Nigeria, then fill in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger inland.
Questions and answers
How many countries are in West Africa?
Sixteen in the United Nations list, from Mauritania to Nigeria, Cape Verde included. All 16 are numbered on this map.
Which West African country has the most people?
Nigeria, the most populous country in all of Africa, on the Gulf of Guinea at the eastern end of the region.
Which countries have no coast?
Three: Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, in the Sahel north of the coastal states.