West Africa generally means the western part of the African continent, in the north to the Central Sahara, in the south and the west limited by the Atlantic Ocean. In geographical terms, the “western part of Africa” also includes the Maghreb countries north of the Sahara (which are in "North Africa").
According to the classification of the United Nations, the following states are located in West Africa:
- Benin (Capital Porto Novo/seat of government Cotonou)
- Burkina Faso (Capital Ouagadougou)
- Ivory Coast (Capital Yamoussoukro/seat of government Abidjan)
- Gambia (Capital Banjul)
- Ghana (Capital Accra)
- Guinea (Capital Conakry)
- Guinea-Bissau (Capital Bissau)
- Cape Verde (Capital Praia)
- Liberia (Capital Monrovia)
- Mali (Capital Bamako)
- Mauretania (Capital Nouakchott)
- Niger (Capital Niamey)
- Nigeria (Capital Abuja)
- Senegal (Capital Dakar)
- Sierra Leone (Capital Freetown)
- Togo (Capital Lomé)
West Africa is affected by the extremes of the francophone and anglophone states, also as a consequence of different concepts of colonisation by the French and the British. Some of the former colonies have stronger relationships to their motherlands than to their neighbour states. The West African community of states ECOWAS serves for the integration of West Africa and strives towards peace in the various crisis regions (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast).
The CFA-Franc BCEAO (Franc de la Communauté Financière d'Afrique) is the currency of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), thus of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. It is issued by the Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (BCEAO) and has the ISO-4217 code XOF.
The CFA-Franc has a fixed exchange rate of 655.957 CFA-Franc = 1 euro to the euro and a fixed exchange rate of 1 to the CFA-Franc BEAC of the Central African Economic and Monetary Union.