West Africa territory in the south Atlantic Ocean. In the United Nations scheme of African regions, the region includes 17 states and the island of Saint Helena, an overseas territory: Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Niger are mostly in the Sahel, a transition zone between the Sahara desert and the Sudanian Savanna, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Nigeria compose Guinea, the traditional name for the area near the Gulf of Guinea, Cape Verde is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean, Mauritania lies in the Maghreb, the northwestern region of Africa that has historically been
West Africa this land is plains lying less than 300 meters above sea level, though isolated high points exist in numerous states along the southern shore of West Africa. The northern section of West Africa (narrowly defined to exclude the western Maghreb) is composed of semi-arid terrain known as Sahel, a transitional zone between the Sahara and the savannahs of the western Sudan. Forests form a belt between the savannas and the southern coast, ranging from 160 km to 240 km in width. The northwest African region of Mauritania periodically suffers country-wide plagues of locusts which consume water, salt and crops on