Mopti (Bambara: ߡߏߕߌ tr. Moti) is a town and an urban commune in the Inner Niger Delta region of Mali. The town is the capital of the Mopti Cercle and the Mopti Region. Situated 630 km northeast of Bamako, the town lies at the confluence of the Niger and the Bani Rivers and is linked by an elevated causeway to the town of Sévaré. The urban commune, which includes both Mopti and Sévaré, had a population of 114,296 in the 2009 census.
Geography
Mopti lies on the right bank of the Bani River, a few hundred meters upstream of the confluence of the Bani with the Niger River. Between August and December when the rivers flood the Inner Niger Delta, the town becomes a series of islands connected by raised causeways. During this period the only road access to the town is along a 12 km causeway that links Mopti to Sévaré. Mopti lies to the west of the Dogon Plateau and is 66 km northwest of Bandiagara and 76 km north-northeast of Djenné. The town is the capital of the Mopti Region and the administrative center of the Mopti Cercle.
The urban commune of Mopti includes the towns of both Mopti and Sévaré. The commune is completely surrounded by the rural commune of Socoura. At the time of the 2009 census the population of the Mopti commune was 114,296. For administrative purposes the commune is subdivided into 11 quartiers: Komoguel I, Komoguel II, Gangal, Toguel, Bougoufié, Mossinkoré, Taïkiri, Médina Coura, Sévaré I, Sévaré II, and Sévaré III. The seat of the commune, the Hôtel de Ville de Mopti, is in Komoguel I.
History
The town of Mopti derives its name from the Fulfulde word for gathering. The name replaced the earlier Bozo name of Sagan. Unlike towns such as Djenné, Timbuktu and Gao, Mopti was a village until the French conquest at the end of the 19th century and did not play an important role in the history of the region.
In April 1828 the French explorer, René Caillié, stopped at Mopti on his journey by boat from Djenné to Timbuktu. In his account he described the village, which he called Isaca, as having 700-800 inhabitants with the houses constructed of sun-dried mud bricks. The inhabitants grew rice on the floodplains, herded livestock and fished with cotton nets. Large quantities of the dried fish were traded in Djenné and other markets. The women made a "beautiful kind of pottery" which they sold in Djenné and to boats heading for Timbuktu. Two centuries later, the cultivation of rice is still very important to the local economy, dried fish are exported over a large part of West Africa and pottery is still shipped from the port.
At the time of Caillié's visit the village was part of the Massina Empire, controlled by Seku Amadu from his base at Hamdullahi, 21 km to the southeast. In 1862 Umar Tall captured Hamdullahi and for a short period the village became part of the Toucouleur Empire. In 1893 French forces under Louis Archinard occupied the region which then became part of the French Sudan.
At the time of the French conquest, Mopti consisted of several separate settlements on small areas of higher ground that remained above the water during the annual flood. French soldiers exploring the Niger on gunboats described Mopti as consisting of a pair villages on the bank of the river 2 km apart with a third village slightly inland.
According to the French colonial army officer, Capitaine Lucien Marc, in 1902 Mopti was a "miserable village" with a few huts. Between 1905 and 1912 the French colonial forces constructed a 12 km dyke connecting Mopti with Sévaré to allow access to the town by road when the Niger was in flood. The village expanded rapidly in the first decade of the 20th century, and by the 1930s the commercial area on the river and the Komoguel district had been developed. The French colonial administration initiated the rebuilding of the great mosque in 1933, basing the design on that of the Great Mosque of Djenné.
Due to the limited land available, Mopti became more densely built than most Malian cities with many multi-story buildings and narrow streets. Originally, the islands were much smaller than they are today; first linked by dykes in the early twentieth century, the areas around and between natural islands have been gradually filled and raised—often by deposition of household trash, a process that still continues today in areas such as the western edge of the Old Town.
In 2002, Mopti was one of several Malian cities to host the Cup of African Nations tournament. A large, modern stadium was constructed for this event.
During the 2012 Northern Mali Conflict, when Islamists took over most of Northern Mali, Mopti was one of the most northerly towns that remained under government control.