Liberia is a republic in western Africa, bounded on the north by
Sierra Leone and Guinea, on the east by Côte d'Ivoire, and on
the south and west by the Atlantic Ocean. Liberia has an area of
99,067 square kilometers (38, 250 square miles). Liberia was
founded in the early 1800s by freed American slaves. Monrovia is
the capital and largest city. Maps of Africa and Liberia Liberia
owes its establishment to the American Colonization Society,
founded in 1816 to resettle freed American slaves in Africa. An
attempt at colonization in Sierra Leone had failed in 1815. Six
years later native rulers granted a tract of land on Cape
Mesurado, at the mouth of the Saint Paul River, to U.S.
representatives, and the first Americo-Liberians, led by Jehudi
Ashmun, began the settlement. In 1894 an American agent for the
society, Ralph Randolph Gurley, named the new colony Liberia and
the Cape Mesurado settlement Monrovia. Other separate
settlements were established along the coast during the next 20
years. Soon, however, confl