The urban systems of medieval Mali

Abstract

Urbanism in medieval Mali was closely connected with long-distance trade but conforms only partly to Vance's mercantile model. Local periodic markets also existed, arranged in a pattern similar to that outlined in Skinner's modification of Christaller's central place theory, although they were not always connected with cities and were subsidiary to the long-distance trading system. Many aspects of urbanism in medieval Mali, however, had little to do either with long-distance trade or withlocal marketing and may be analysed more lucidly by invoking cultural phenomena than through established models of urban systems.