In 1312 the most famous Malian king, Mansa Musa, came to power. Mansa Musa's reign marks the golden age of the Mali empire, spreading its territory and fame far and wide. Under Mansa Musa, the empire reached as far as the Atlantic Ocean in the West and past the trading cities of Timbuktu and Gao in the East, encompassing the past kingdom of Ghana in its entirety, and was home to an estimated five to ten million people.[1]