The Tuareg are the principal inhabitants of which area?
Tuareg people vast area in the Sahara, stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Their combined population in these territories exceeds 2.5 million, with an estimated population in Niger of around 2 million (11% of inhabitants) and in Mali of another 0.5 million (3% of inhabitants. The Tuareg are also the majority ethnic group in the Kidal Region of northeastern Mali. The Tuareg traditionally speak the Tuareg languages, also known as "Tamasheq", "Tamachen", "Tamashekin", "Tomacheck" and "Kidal". These tongues belong to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. According to "Ethnologue", there are an estimated 1.2
Tuareg people million Tuareg speakers. Around half this number consists of speakers of the Eastern dialect ("Tamajaq", "Tawallammat"). The exact number of Tuareg speakers per territory is uncertain. The CIA estimates that the Tuareg population in Mali constitutes approximately 0.9% of the national population (~150,000), whereas about 3.5% of local inhabitants speak Tuareg (Tamacheq) as a primary language. In contrast, Imperato (2008) estimates that the Tuareg represent around 3% of Mali's population. In antiquity, the Tuareg moved southward from the Tafilalt region into the Sahel under the Tuareg founding queen Tin Hinan, who is believed to have lived between the 4th and