49 Fun Facts About Liberia

What is the capital and largest city of Liberia?

Monrovia, founded in 1822 on Cape Mesurado by the first American settlers, is Liberia's seat of government and its main Atlantic port.

Liberia's capital was founded in 1822 under what original name?

Christopolis was the settlement's first name; in 1824 it was renamed in honour of the sitting US president, who backed the colonization effort.

Which organisation, formed in 1816, began sending free Black Americans to West Africa in 1822?

The American Colonization Society, founded in 1816 with backers including Henry Clay, landed its first settlers in 1822; its members ranged from Quakers to slaveholders.

How many freed and free-born African Americans moved to Liberia between 1822 and 1861?

More than 15,000 free and freed Black Americans settled in Liberia before the US Civil War, joined by 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans; their descendants became the Americo-Liberians.

On what date did Liberia declare its independence?

26 July 1847 is Liberia's Independence Day; the settlers' convention adopted a declaration drafted by Hilary Teage and a constitution modelled on the United States'.

Who was elected the first president of independent Liberia, serving from 1848 to 1856?

Joseph Jenkins Roberts, born free in Norfolk, Virginia, emigrated in 1829, became governor in 1841 and served as president from 1848 to 1856, returning for a second term in 1872.

Liberia holds what distinction among African republics?

The first to gain independence among Africa's modern republics, Liberia declared sovereignty in the 1840s; with Ethiopia it was one of only two African states not colonised during the Scramble for Africa.

Portuguese traders named the coast of modern Liberia after which local product?

Pepper, specifically melegueta pepper or 'grains of paradise', grew abundantly here, so Europeans called it the Pepper Coast or Grain Coast.

How many stripes does the flag of Liberia have?

Eleven stripes, six red and five white, represent the eleven men who signed Liberia's Declaration of Independence.

The Liberian flag is occasionally called by what nickname?

The Lone Star refers to the single white star on the flag, which was adopted on 24 August, now celebrated as Flag Day, in the year of independence.

Which political force dominated Liberian politics from 1877 until the 1980 coup?

The True Whig Party won every presidential election from 1877 until the 1980 coup, making it one of the longest-ruling parties anywhere.

Which American company took a 99-year lease on a million acres of Liberia in 1926 to grow rubber?

Firestone, seeking a rubber supply outside Britain's Stevenson restriction scheme, signed the 1926 lease at six cents an acre and paired it with a $5 million loan to Liberia.

Who was Liberia's longest-serving president, in office from 1944 until his death in 1971?

William Tubman, called the father of modern Liberia, announced an Open Door policy on taking office in 1944 that drew foreign investment during his 27-year rule.

Which master sergeant seized power in the 1980 coup, becoming Liberia's first indigenous leader?

Samuel Doe, a Krahn master sergeant, led the 12 April 1980 coup in which President Tolbert was killed; thirteen officials were then shot on a beach in the capital.

The 2003 peace agreement that ended Liberia's second civil war was signed in which city?

Accra, Ghana's capital, hosted the talks; the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed there on 18 August 2003 set up a transitional government and cleared the way for the 2005 election.

Which rebel leader captured and executed Liberia's president in September 1990?

Prince Johnson, whose INPFL had split from Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front, seized the president at the ECOMOG headquarters in the capital on 9 September 1990 and had him tortured and killed.

Charles Taylor's rebellion began the First Liberian Civil War in December of which year?

1989: on Christmas Eve Charles Taylor's NPFL crossed from Ivory Coast into northern Liberia, starting the war that ended with his election as president in 1997.

Roughly how many people died in Liberia's two civil wars?

250,000 deaths across the two civil wars is the commonly cited toll, roughly 8% of Liberia's pre-war population, with hundreds of thousands more displaced or made refugees.

Charles Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 2012 for crimes committed in which conflict?

The Sierra Leone Civil War was the basis of the charges: the Special Court found Taylor had armed the RUF rebels in return for blood diamonds; he had resigned in 2003 for exile in Nigeria.

Who was elected in 2005 as the first female president in Africa?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist and former finance minister, served two terms from 2006 to 2018, becoming Africa's first elected female head of state.

Which Liberian activist led the women's movement that helped end the war in 2003 and shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize?

Leymah Gbowee organised Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, whose sit-ins pressured Charles Taylor into the 2003 talks; her memoir is Mighty Be Our Powers.

Which former footballer was sworn in as Liberia's president in January 2018?

George Weah, the 1995 Ballon d'Or winner, took office on 22 January 2018 after winning a December 2017 runoff, the first democratic transfer of power between elected presidents in more than 70 years.

Liberia's footballer-president was at which club when he received the 1995 Ballon d'Or?

AC Milan signed him from Paris Saint-Germain in 1995, months before he received the Ballon d'Or; he won two Serie A titles there after Arsène Wenger had first brought him to Monaco in 1988.

Who won Liberia's 2023 presidential runoff and was sworn in in January 2024?

Joseph Boakai, vice-president from 2006 to 2018, won the November 2023 runoff with about 50.6% of the vote and took office on 22 January 2024.

The 2014 Ebola outbreak reached Liberia from which neighbouring country?

Guinea, where the epidemic began in a Guéckédou-area village in December 2013, passed the virus into Lofa County in March 2014; Liberia went on to record more than 4,800 deaths.

Liberia's flag-of-convenience registry long ranked second in the world behind which country's?

Panama's registry, the largest for decades, was the only one ahead of Liberia's for most of the 2000s and 2010s; Liberia's open registry dates from 1948.

What is Liberia's official language?

English is the official language, a legacy of the American settlers; more than 20 indigenous languages are spoken by the 16 officially recognised ethnic groups.

Which is Liberia's largest ethnic group, at over a fifth of the population?

The Kpelle, about a fifth of Liberians, live mainly in Bong County and central Liberia and form the largest single language group.

Alongside its own currency, which foreign currency is legal tender in Liberia?

The country used the US dollar outright from 1943 to 1982, and the economy remains heavily dollarised.

What is the highest point lying wholly within Liberia?

Mount Wuteve, in the Wologizi Range of Lofa County in the north, rises about 1,440 metres above the surrounding forested highlands.

Liberia holds roughly what share of the remaining Upper Guinean rainforest?

40% or more of the surviving Upper Guinean rainforest lies in Liberia, the largest share of any country; in 2014 Norway pledged $150 million to help curb deforestation.

Which small, nocturnal mammal, native mainly to Liberia, is one of only two living species in its family?

Pygmy hippopotamus is the common name of Choeropsis liberiensis, which shares its family with only the common hippo; fewer than 3,000 survive in the wild, mostly in Liberia's forests.

Sapo National Park, Liberia's first protected area, was proclaimed in which year?

1983 saw Sapo National Park proclaimed in Sinoe County; it protects West Africa's second-largest tract of primary rainforest after Taï in Ivory Coast.

Which river forms Liberia's main northwestern boundary?

The Mano River runs along the Sierra Leone frontier to the Atlantic and gave its name to the Mano River Union, founded by the two countries in 1973.

Liberia was one of only 32 nations at which 1919 gathering that founded the League of Nations?

The Versailles Peace Conference of 1919 included Liberia because it had declared war on Germany in 1917; a German submarine had shelled its capital in 1918.

Liberia's deep-water Freeport, completed in 1948, was built under which US wartime programme?

Lend-Lease, the 1941 programme for supplying US allies, financed the Freeport, completed in 1948; Roberts Field, built in 1942, served as a staging post for aircraft bound for North Africa.

How many senators sit in Liberia's Senate?

30 senators sit in the upper house, two for each of the counties, serving nine-year terms; the House of Representatives has 73 members.

Through 2024, how many times had Liberia reached the Africa Cup of Nations finals?

Twice: Liberia qualified for the 1996 and 2002 tournaments and went out in the group stage both times.

In a 2010 survey, what share of Liberians said they had paid a bribe, the world's highest?

89% of Liberians told Transparency International's 2010 Global Corruption Barometer they had paid a bribe in the past year, the highest rate of any country surveyed.

Which two secret societies, for men and women, do many Liberians belong to?

Poro and Sande are the men's and women's societies that initiate adolescents in secluded bush schools, a tradition found across much of Liberia and neighbouring countries.

Which country pressured Liberia into surrendering territory to Sierra Leone in the 19th century?

The United Kingdom forced Liberia to give up the Gallinas coast to Sierra Leone in the 1880s, and France likewise took land for Ivory Coast in 1892.

Liberia's most celebrated novel, Murder in the Cassava Patch, is by which author?

Bai T. Moore, a Liberian poet and folklorist, published Murder in the Cassava Patch in 1968; the short novel has long been a set text in Liberian schools.

Between 1989 and 1995 Liberia's GDP fell by an estimated what?

It was one of the fastest economic collapses in modern history; GDP per capita had peaked in 1980 at a level comparable to Egypt's.

The US did not recognise Liberia's independence until which year, after the Southern states seceded?

1862 brought recognition under Lincoln, once the secession of the slaveholding states removed the main opposition to receiving a Black diplomat in Washington.

Which reference work lists Liberia's 1927 presidential election as the most fraudulent ever reported?

Guinness World Records lists the 1927 election as the most fraudulent ever reported: President Charles D. B. King was credited with over 230,000 votes from fewer than 20,000 registered voters.

Which iron-rich mountain near the mining town of Yekepa rises on Liberia's northern border?

Mount Nimba, whose massif tops out at 1,752 m, is rich in iron ore; the LAMCO mine at Yekepa worked its Liberian slopes from 1963 until the civil war.

Under Liberian customary law, a man may have up to how many wives?

Four wives is the limit under customary law, which runs alongside statutory law; civil marriages under the statute are monogamous.

Which is Liberia's largest county by area?

Nimba County covers about 11,550 square kilometres in the north-east and, with its iron-ore mountains and the trading city of Ganta, is also the second most populous county.

Which port city in Grand Bassa County honours the first governor of the Commonwealth of Liberia?

Buchanan, on the coast of Grand Bassa County, honours Thomas Buchanan, who governed the Commonwealth of Liberia from 1839 until his death in 1841; it later became Liberia's iron-ore port.