Ancient Ghana

Aoukar was popularly known as "Ghana" It is not yet certain how and when Ghana was founded. But from Arab sources, particularly; the Tarikh as Sudan, it appears to have been founded by a Soninke dynasty between AD 300-400. The Ghana Kingdom was situated on the grassland north of headwaters of Senegal & Niger. It's capital, Kumbi Saleh, is said to have been found by Kaya Maghan, who is reputed to have overthrown the immigrant minority ruling class of "white"(Products of Intermarriages between Berber Settlers and Negro indigenous) about AD 770 and established a pure Soninke dynasty. By AD 1000 the Soninke kingdom had extended its territory west to the river Senegal, south to Bambuk region, east to the Niger and north to the Berber town of Audoghast on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. By the middle of the eleventh century, when Ghana was at the zenith of its imperial expansion, it controlled the area covering modern states of Senegal, Mali and Mauritania - a territory of roughly 650 000 square kilometers with a population of several millions.