Geography Quiz Arcade

Guinea 🇬🇳

Guinea is a country in Africa with a population of 13,859,341. Its capital is Conakry. The official currency is GNF, and the main languages are French.

Quick facts

  • Capital: Conakry
  • Continent: Africa
  • Population: 13,859,341
  • Area: 245,857 km²
  • Density: 56.4 people per km²
  • Currency: GNF
  • Languages: French
  • ISO code: GN

Where Guinea sits

Guinea 🇬🇳 is one of 54 countries in Africa, with its capital at Conakry. It covers 245,857 square kilometres — 77th in the world — and is home to about 13,859,341 people, 75th globally.

The countries it shares a continent with include Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. If you are learning geography region by region — which works far better than alphabetically, because memory for places is spatial — those are the ones to learn alongside it.

How Guinea compares

Raw figures are hard to hold on their own, so it helps to anchor them. In population, Guinea sits closest to Rwanda and Benin. In land area, its nearest counterparts are United Kingdom and Uganda.

At 56.4 people per square kilometre it is close to the world average of 59.4. It ranks higher by population than by area, so it is more crowded than its size alone suggests.

French is an official language in 30 countries here, among them Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso and Burundi, and 25 others. The GNF is used by Guinea and no one else.

To see Guinea next to every other country, sort the country rankings by population, area or density; its currency and languages are listed alongside every other country's in world currencies and world languages.

How to remember Guinea

Conakry is on the coast. Four countries have 'Guinea' in their names: Guinea (Conakry), Guinea-Bissau (Bissau), Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea. For the flag, Guinea's red-yellow-green is Mali's green-yellow-red read backwards.

The flag of Guinea: red, yellow and green

🇬🇳 The flag is three vertical stripes of red, yellow and green. Red stands for the people's sacrifice and work, yellow for the sun, the riches of the earth and justice, and green for the country's plants and unity. These are the Pan-African colours.

Region and neighbours

Guinea is a country on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, between Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. It shares land borders with 6 countries: Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Three facts about Guinea

  1. Guinea is the world's second-largest producer of bauxite, the rock that aluminium is made from.
  2. The Fouta Djallon highlands in Guinea are where the Gambia River and the Senegal River begin, and so does the Tinkisso, a major tributary of the Niger.
  3. The Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, on the border with Côte d'Ivoire, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Guinea, Wikipedia: Flag of Guinea, Wikipedia: Conakry, Wikipedia: Fouta Djallon, CIA World Factbook.

Quiz yourself on Guinea

Quizzes that include Guinea

Three angles are worth covering for any country — where it is, what its flag looks like, and what its capital is. For Guinea those are:

Doing all three for one continent before moving on is far more efficient than learning flags globally, then capitals globally, then the map.

Read more about Guinea

Nearby countries

Frequently asked questions

What are the colours of the Guinea flag?

The flag of Guinea is three vertical stripes of red, yellow and green. Red stands for the people's sacrifice and work, yellow for the sun, the riches of the earth and justice, and green for the country's plants and unity. These are the Pan-African colours.

Which countries border Guinea?

Guinea shares land borders with Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

How can I remember the capital of Guinea?

Conakry is on the coast. Four countries have 'Guinea' in their names: Guinea (Conakry), Guinea-Bissau (Bissau), Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea. For the flag, Guinea's red-yellow-green is Mali's green-yellow-red read backwards.