Niger: Monographic Study on Demography, Peace, And Security in The Sahel

Administratively, Niger is subdivided into 8 regions, 63 departments and 266 communes and covers an area of 1,267,000 km2 with four ecological zones from south to north: the Sudanian tree-covered savannah zone, the Sahelian zone, the Sahelo-Saharan zone and the desert zone (two thirds of the country). It is bordered to the north by Algeria and Libya, to the east by Chad, to the south by Nigeria and Benin, to the west by Burkina Faso and to the north-west by Mali. Niger is thus landlocked and has no outlet to the sea. The closest port to its capital city is almost 1,000 km away.