ABSTRACT
The series of single round demographic surveys undertaken in central Mali during 1981–2 by a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have yielded a good deal of new information about the recent fertility and mortality levels of the main ethnic groups living in two very different ecological zones in central Mali. Whilst the data are not nationally representative, they provide some valuable insights into the demography of an important part of the rural population of Mali and can be seen as a valuable addition to our knowledge of demographic trends in rural Mali since the 1956–8 surveys of the Niger inner delta or the 1960–61 national demographic survey. For some purposes, the data may be used in conjunction with the 1976 census results which unfortunately do not contain data on the lifetime fertility or mortality experience of adults or of children.
