French West Africa with the exception of the Senegalese Communes, the administrative structure of French rule at the lower levels remained constant, based upon the Cercle system. This was the smallest unit of French political administration in French colonial Africa that was headed by a European officer. They might range in size, but French Sudan (modern Mali) consisted of less than a dozen Cercles for most of its existence. Thus, a Cercle Commander might be the absolute authority over hundreds of thousands of Africans. A Cercle consisted of several cantons, each of which in turn consisted of several villages, and was almost universal
Postage stamps and postal history of French Sudan and Governor General Noël Ballay in 1906 and a Tuareg horseman in 1914. All the above stamps of this colony with its successive names became uncommon for letters until 1920. In 1920, Upper Senegal and Niger became French Sudan and some of its regions became Upper Volta and Niger. The Tuareg horseman stamps were widely used in these three colonies until the late 1920s. From 1931 to 1944, the subjects were the Colonial Exhibition of 1931, Pierre and Marie Curie, the explorer René Caillié or the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. But the subjects of the issues from