Батыс Африкадағы Гвинея-Бисау мемлекеті

Country in West Africa

Guinea Bissau (/audio=En us Guinea Bissau. ogg/,/ɡ//ɪ//n//i// //b//ᵻ/'/s//aʊ/ GHINee biSOW; Guiné Bissau; ; Mandinka: ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫ ߓߌߛߊߥߏ߫ Gine Bisawo), officially the Republic of Guinea Bissau (República da Guiné Bissau ʁɛˈpuβlikɐ ðɐ ɣiˈnɛ βiˈsaw), is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to its north and Guinea to its southeast. Guinea Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Kaabu, as well as part of the Mali Empire. The Bissagos, islands off the coast of Guinea Bissau, were officially conquered in 1936, ensuring Portuguese control of both the mainland and islands of the region. Upon independence, declared in 1973 and recognised in 1974, the name of its capital, Bissau, was added to the country's name to prevent confusion with Guinea (formerly French Guinea). Guinea Bissau has a history of political instability since independence. The current president is Umaro Sissoco Embaló, who was elected on 29 December 2019. Only about 2% of the population speaks Portuguese, the official language, as a first language, and 33% speak it as a second language. However, Guinea Bissau Creole, a Portuguese based creole, is the national language and also considered the language of unity. According to a 2012 study, 54% of the population speak Creole as a first language and about 40% speak it as a second language. The remainder speak a variety of native African languages. The nation is home to numerous followers of Islam, Christianity and traditional faiths, though no single religious group represents a majority of the population. The Balanta and Jola had weak or non existent institutions of kingship but instead put an emphasis on heads of villages and families. Relations between the kingdom and the Portuguese were initially warm, but deteriorated over time.

In the Bijagos Islands, different islands were populated by people of different ethnic origins, leading to great cultural diversity in the archipelago. Mali declined gradually, beginning in the 14th century. Formerly secure possessions in what is now Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea Bissau were cut off by the expanding power of Koli Tenguella in the early 16th century. Kaabu therefore became an independent federation of kingdoms. The ruling classes were composed of elite warriors known as the Nyancho (Ñaanco) who traced their patrilineal lineage to Tiramakhan Traore. The Nyancho were a warrior culture, reputed to be excellent cavalry men and raiders. The Kaabu Mansaba was seated in Kansala, today known as Gabu, in the eastern Geba region. The slave trade dominated the economy, enriching the warrior classes with imported cloth, beads, metalware, and firearms. Although the Portuguese authorities initially discouraged white settlement on the mainland, this prohibition was ignored by lançados and tangomãos who assimilated into indigenous culture and customs.

Guinea Bissau was among the first regions touched by the Atlantic slave trade and, while it did not produce the same number of enslaved people as other regions, the impact was still significant. In Cape Verde Guinean slaves were instrumental in developing the plantation economy, growing indigo and cotton and weaving panos cloth that became a standard currency in West Africa. After Cabral's death, party leadership fell to Aristides Pereira, who would later become the first president of the Republic of Cape Verde.

Independence was unilaterally declared on 24 September 1973, which is now celebrated as the country's Independence Day, a public holiday. The country was formally recognized as independent on 10 September 1974. Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania was the first country to formally recognise Guinea Bissau and the first to sign agreements with the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. Upon the nation's independence, it declared Esta É a Nossa Pátria Bem Amada as its national anthem. Until 1996, this was shared with Cape Verde, which later adopted its own official national anthem Cântico da Liberdade. Luís Cabral, brother of Amílcar and co founder of PAIGC, was appointed the first president of Guinea Bissau. The country was controlled by a revolutionary council until 1984. The first multi party elections were held in 1994. An army uprising in May 1998 led to the Guinea Bissau Civil War and the president's ousting in June 1999. Elections were held again in 2000, and Kumba Ialá was elected president.

In September 2003, a military coup was conducted. The military arrested Ialá on the charge of being "unable to solve the problems". After being delayed several times, legislative elections were held in March 2004. A mutiny in October 2004 over pay arrears resulted in the death of the head of the armed forces. In June 2005, presidential elections were held for the first time since the coup that deposed Ialá. Ialá returned as the candidate for the PRS, claiming to be the legitimate president of the country, but the election was won by former president João Bernardo Vieira, deposed in the 1999 coup. Vieira beat Malam Bacai Sanhá in a run off election. Sanhá initially refused to concede, claiming that tampering and electoral fraud occurred in two constituencies including the capital, Bissau. Foreign monitors described the elections as "calm and organized", despite some reports of arms entering the country prior to the election and few "disturbances during campaigning", including attacks on government offices by unidentified gunmen. Three years later, Sanhá's PAIGC won a strong parliamentary majority, with 67 of 100 seats, in the parliamentary election held in November 2008. In November 2008, President Vieira's official residence was attacked by members of the armed forces, killing a guard but leaving the president unharmed. On 2 March 2009, however, Vieira was assassinated by what preliminary reports indicated to be a group of soldiers avenging the death of the head of joint chiefs of staff, General Batista Tagme Na Wai, who had been killed in an explosion the day before. Vieira's death did not trigger widespread violence, but there were signs of turmoil in the country, according to the advocacy group Swisspeace. Military leaders in the country pledged to respect the constitutional order of succession. National Assembly Speaker Raimundo Pereira was appointed as an interim president until a nationwide election on 28 June 2009. It was won by Malam Bacai Sanhá, against Kumba Ialá as the presidential candidate of the PRS. On 9 January 2012, President Sanhá died of complications from diabetes, and Pereira was again appointed as an interim president. On the evening of 12 April 2012, members of the country's military staged a coup d'état and arrested the interim president and a leading presidential candidate. Former vice chief of staff, General Mamadu Ture Kuruma, assumed control of the country in the transitional period and started negotiations with opposition parties. The 2014 general election saw José Mário Vaz elected President of Guinea Bissau. Vaz became the first elected president to complete his five year mandate. At the same time, he was eliminated in the first round of the 2019 presidential elections, ultimately seeing Umaro Sissoco Embaló emerge as the victor. Embaló, the first president to be elected without the backing of the PAIGC, took office in February 2020. On 1 February 2022, there was an attempted coup d'état to overthrow President Umaro Sissoco Embaló. On 2 February 2022, state radio announced that four assailants and two members of the presidential guard had been killed in the incident. The African Union and ECOWAS both condemned the coup. Six days after the attempted coup d'état, on 7 February 2022, there was an attack on the building of Rádio Capital FM, a radio station critical of the Bissau Guinean government; this was the second time the radio station suffered an attack of this nature in less than two years. From 30 November to 1 December 2023 there was reportedly an attempted coup in the capital, Bissau, leading Embaló to order the dissolution of the opposition controlled parliament.

Guinea Bissau is a republic. In the past, the government had been highly centralized. Multi party governance was not established until mid 1991. The two main political parties are the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and the PRS (Party for Social Renewal). There are more than 20 minor parties.

Guinea Bissau is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organisation and political association of Lusophone nations where Portuguese is an official language.

A 2019 estimate put the size of the Guinea Bissau Armed Forces at around 4,400 personnel and military spending is less than 2% of GDP. In 2018, Guinea Bissau signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Guinea Bissau is divided into eight regions (regiões) and one autonomous sector (sector autónomo). These, in turn, are subdivided into 37 Sectors. The regions are:

At , The country is home to two ecoregions: Guinean forest–savanna mosaic and Guinean mangroves.

Guinea Bissau is warm all year round with mild temperature fluctuations; it averages 26.3 °C (79 °F). The average rainfall for Bissau is , although this is almost entirely accounted for during the rainy season which falls between June and September/October. From December through April, the country experiences drought.

Severe environmental problems include deforestation, soil erosion, overgrazing, and overfishing.

Guinea Bissau's GDP per capita and Human Development Index are among the lowest in the world. More than two thirds of the population lives below the poverty line. The economy depends mainly on agriculture; fish, cashew nuts, and ground nuts are its major exports. A long period of political instability has resulted in depressed economic activity, deteriorating social conditions, and increased macroeconomic imbalances. It takes longer on average to register a new business in Guinea Bissau (233 days or about 33 weeks) than in any other country in the world except Suriname. Guinea Bissau has started to show some economic advances after a pact of stability was signed by the main political parties of the country, leading to an IMF backed structural reform program. After several years of economic downturn and political instability, in 1997, Guinea Bissau entered the CFA franc monetary system, bringing about some internal monetary stability. The civil war from 1998 to 1999, and a military coup in September 2003, again disrupted economic activity, leaving a substantial part of the economic and social infrastructure in ruins and intensifying the already widespread poverty. Following the parliamentary elections in March 2004 and presidential elections in July 2005, the country is trying to recover from the long period of instability, despite a still fragile political situation. Beginning around 2005, drug traffickers based in Latin America began to use Guinea Bissau, along with several neighbouring West African nations, as a transshipment point to Europe for cocaine. The nation was described by a United Nations official as being at risk for becoming a "narco state". The government and the military have done little to stop drug trafficking, which increased after the 2012 coup d'état. The government of Guinea Bissau continues to be ravaged by illegal drug distribution, according to The Economist. Guinea Bissau is a member of the Organization for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA).

Various studies suggest that slightly less than half of the population of Guinea Bissau is Muslim, while substantial minorities follow folk religions or Christianity. The CIA World Factbook's 2020 estimate stated that the population was 46.1% Muslim, 30.6% following folk religions, 18.9% Christian, 4.4% other or unaffiliated. A 2015 Pew Templeton study found that the population was 45.1% Muslim, 30.9% practicing folk religions, 19.7% Christian, and 4.3% unaffiliated. Concerning religious identity among Muslims, a Pew report determined that in Guinea Bissau there is no prevailing sectarian identity. Guinea Bissau shared this distinction with other Sub Saharan countries like Tanzania, Uganda, Liberia, Nigeria and Cameroon. This Pew research also stated that countries in this specific study that declared to not have any clear dominant sectarian identity were mostly concentrated in Sub Saharan Africa. Another Pew report, The Future of World Religions, predicts that from 2010 to 2050, practitioners of Islam will increase their share of the population in Guinea Bissau. Many residents practice syncretic forms of Islamic and Christian faiths, combining their practices with traditional African beliefs. Muslims dominate the north and east, while Christians dominate the south and coastal regions. The Roman Catholic Church claims most of the Christian community. The 2021 US Department of State Report on International Religious Freedom mentions the fact that leaders of different religious communities believe that the existing communities are essentially tolerant, but express some concerns about rising religious fundamentalism in the country. An incident in July 2022, when a Catholic church in the overwhelmingly Muslim region of Gabú was vandalised, raised concern amongst the Christian community that Islamic extremism might be infiltrating the country. However, there have been no further similar incidents, and no direct links to Islamic extremists have surfaced.

Education is compulsory from the age of 7 to 13. Pre school education for children between three and six years of age is optional and in its early stages. There are five levels of education: pre school, elemental and complementary basic education, general and complementary secondary education, general secondary education, technical and professional teaching, and higher education (university and non universities). Basic education is under reform, and now forms a single cycle, comprising six years of education. Secondary education is widely available and there are two cycles (7th to 9th classe and 10th to 11th classe). Professional education in public institutions is nonoperational, however private school offerings opened, including the Centro de Formação São João Bosco (since 2004) and the Centro de Formação Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (since 2011). Non formal education is centered on community schools and the teaching of adults.

Usually, the many different ethnic groups in Guinea Bissau coexist peacefully, but when conflicts do erupt, they tend to revolve around access to land.

The music of Guinea Bissau is usually associated with the polyrhythmic gumbe genre, the country's primary musical export. However, civil unrest and other factors have combined over the years to keep gumbe, and other genres, out of mainstream audiences, even in generally syncretist African countries. The cabasa is the primary musical instrument of Guinea Bissau, and is used in extremely swift and rhythmically complex dance music. Lyrics are almost always in Guinea Bissau Creole, a Portuguese based creole language, and are often humorous and topical, revolving around current events and controversies. The word gumbe is sometimes used generically, to refer to any music of the country, although it most specifically refers to a unique style that fuses about ten of the country's folk music traditions. Tina and tinga are other popular genres, while extent folk traditions include ceremonial music used in funerals, initiations, and other rituals, as well as Balanta brosca and kussundé, Mandinga djambadon, and the kundere sound of the Bissagos Islands.

Common dishes include soups and stews. Common ingredients include yams, sweet potato, cassava, onion, tomato, and plantain. Spices, peppers, and chilis are used in cooking, including Aframomum melegueta seeds (Guinea pepper).

Flora Gomes is an internationally renowned film director; his most famous film is Nha Fala Gomes's Mortu Nega (Death Denied) (1988) was the first fiction film and the second feature film ever made in Guinea Bissau. (The first feature film was N’tturudu, by director Umbañ U Kset in 1987.) At FESPACO 1989, Mortu Nega won the prestigious Oumarou Ganda Prize. In 1992, Gomes directed Udju Azul di Yonta, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Gomes has also served on the boards of many Africa centric film festivals. The actress Babetida Sadjo was born in Bafatá, Guinea Bissau.

Football is the most popular sport in Guinea Bissau. The Guinea Bissau national football team is under the authority of the Federação de Futebol da Guiné Bissau. They are a member of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and FIFA.