This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: It lists the wrong number of regions, and may list the wrong number of cercles too. There are no references since 2 new regions were created in 2016.. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(May 2023)
A cercle is the second-level administrative unit in
Mali. Mali is divided into eight
régions and one capital district (
Bamako); the régions are subdivided into 49 cercles. These subdivisions bear the name of their principal city.
During
French colonial rule in
Mali, a cercle was the smallest unit of French political administration that was headed by a
European officer. A cercle consisted of several cantons, each of which in turn consisted of several villages. In 1887, the Cercle of
Bafoulabé was the first cercle to be created in Mali. In most of former
French West Africa, the term cercle was changed to
prefecture or
department after independence, but this was not done in Mali.
Some cercles (and the district) were, prior to the 1999 local government reorganisation, further divided into
arrondissements, especially in urban areas or the vast northern regions (such as
Kidal), which consisted of a collection of communes. Since these reforms, cercles are now directly subdivided into rural and urban communes, which in turn are divided in quartiers (quarters, or villages and encampments in rural areas) which have elected councils at each level.[1] There are 703
communes, 36 urban communes (including six in Bamako District) and 667 rural communes.[2] The cercles are listed below.
Regions, Cercles and Places in Mali, African Development Information Services Database. Contains listing of Arrondissements under each Cercle page, as well as some Communes and places of interest in each Cercle.
Colonial usage
Benton, Lauren: Colonial Law and Cultural Difference: Jurisdictional Politics and the Formation of the Colonial State in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Jul., 1999)
Crowder, Michael: West Africa Under Colonial Rule Northwestern Univ. Press (1968) ASIN: B000NUU584
Crowder, Michael: Indirect Rule: French and British Style Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1964)
Mortimer, Edward France and the Africans, 1944–1960, A Political History (1970)
Jean Suret-Canele. French Colonialism in Tropical Africa 1900–1945. Trans. Pica Press (1971)