festivites
One of the major festivities celebrated in Liberia is Independence Day on July 26th, which commemorates Liberia's declaration of independence from the United States in 1847. The day is marked with parades, fireworks, and cultural performances in Monrovia, the capital city, and in other towns and villages across the country.
Another holiday in Liberia is Decoration Day, also known as All Souls' Day, observed on the second Sunday in March. This day is a time for Liberians to pay homage to their ancestors by cleaning their gravesites and laying flowers or wreaths.
Liberia also celebrates Christmas Day on December 25th, which is a time for families to come together and exchange gifts. Many Liberians attend church services and participate in carol singing, while others enjoy traditional foods such as rice bread and palm butter soup.
New Year's Day on January 1st is also celebrated in Liberia, typically with fireworks displays and parties. Additionally, various ethnic groups in Liberia have their own cultural festivals throughout the year, such as the Poro and Sande societies of the Mande people, which are marked with secret rituals and elaborate masks.
seasons
As an AI language model, I don't have access to real-time information on tourism in Liberia. However, Liberia generally has a tropical climate with two distinct seasons: the wet season from May to October and the dry season from November to April. It is recommended to visit Liberia during the dry season when traveling may be easier due to better road conditions and fewer instances of heavy rains. It is also important to check the latest travel advisories and health recommendations before planning a trip to Liberia.
visa
Citizens of all countries require a visa to enter Liberia. Some special visa rules include:
1. Visa on Arrival: Citizens of some countries, including the USA, Canada, and EU member states, can obtain a visa on arrival at Roberts International Airport in Monrovia.
2. Yellow Fever Vaccination: Visitors coming from countries with a risk of yellow fever transmission are required to have a yellow fever vaccination certificate to enter Liberia.
The cost of a Liberian visa varies depending on the type of visa and the applicant's nationality. Here are average costs for some common types of visas:
1. Tourist Visa: $50 - $100
2. Business Visa: $100 - $200
3. Student Visa: $100 - $150
4. Transit Visa: $50 - $100
Note that these costs are subject to change and may not be accurate at the time of your application. It is best to consult with the Liberian embassy or consulate in your country for up-to-date information on visa requirements and fees.
souvenirs
I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I don't have access to current market information or local shops in Liberia. However, some popular souvenirs from Liberia include handmade crafts such as wooden carvings, masks, and jewelry made from natural materials like beads and shells. The price of these items may vary depending on the quality, size, and location of purchase. It's best to buy them from traditional markets or artisan workshops.
If you have 1 week
Liberia is a wonderful country with many amazing places to visit, and I am excited to create an itinerary for you! To start, I recommend checking out Monrovia, the capital city. It is a bustling metropolis that has a rich cultural history. I suggest visiting Centennial Pavilion, the National Museum of Liberia and Providence Island. Centennial Pavilion was built in honor of Liberia's 100 years of independence and offers stunning views of Monrovia. The National Museum of Liberia is a great place to learn about the country's history and culture, while Providence Island features beautiful beaches and delicious seafood.
Next, I suggest heading out of the city to visit Sapo National Park, which is home to over 125 species of mammals, 590 species of birds, and 1,000 species of plants. Here, you can go on a guided tour of the park and see animals like pygmy hippos, chimpanzees, and elephants in their natural habitats.
Another must-see destination in Liberia is the Firestone Rubber Plantation. This is the largest plantation in the country and one of the largest in the world. You will have the opportunity to take a tour of the plantation and learn about the rubber production process. Additionally, you can visit the nearby town of Harbel, where you can see how the workers at the plantation live.
Finally, I suggest taking a trip to Robertsport, a coastal town located along the Atlantic Ocean. This town is famous for its surfing, fishing, and beautiful beaches. The town also has an interesting history, as it was founded by freed American slaves. While there, be sure to visit Cape Mount, a mountain located near the town, which offers breathtaking views of the surrounding area.
I hope this itinerary provides you with a great insight into the beauty and culture of Liberia. Enjoy your trip!
If you have 2 weeks
Liberia is a beautiful country in West Africa with diverse cultures, stunning natural landscapes, and a rich history. Here is my itinerary for your two-week trip:
Week 1:
Day 1-3: Begin your journey by exploring the capital city of Monrovia. Visit the National Museum of Liberia to learn about the country's past, take a stroll in Waterside Market, sample the local cuisine at one of the many restaurants, and visit the beautiful beaches like Thinkers Beach and CeCe Beach.
Day 4-6: Take a trip to Sapo National Park, known as the "Crown Jewel" of Liberia's protected areas. This park has an abundance of wildlife, including pygmy hippos, chimpanzees, and forest elephants. You can also explore the park's pristine rainforest, hike to the top of Mount Nimba or relax at Kpatawee Waterfall.
Day 7-9: Next, head to Buchanan, a coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean, where you can enjoy activities such as surfing, kayaking, and swimming. Don't miss out on visiting the picturesque Cestos Lighthouse and the lovely Rock Crusher and White Sands beaches.
Week 2:
Day 10-12: Take a short flight to Ganta, located in the Nimba Mountains, where you can witness the stunning view of the mountainous landscape, interact with friendly locals and shop for souvenirs at the Ganta Market. You can also visit the historic Bong Mines Railway and the beautiful Kpatawee Waterfall.
Day 13-14: End your adventure by relaxing in Harper, a coastal town that offers some of the best attractions of Liberia. Enjoy the white sandy beaches, go whale watching, and take a tour of the nearby lagoons, mangroves, and fishing villages. Don't forget to visit the famous Ducor Palace Hotel, which used to be a luxurious five-star hotel before it was destroyed during the civil war.
These are some of the must-visit places in Liberia that you should consider for your two-week itinerary. Enjoy your trip and make unforgettable memories!
Culture
The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of the Americo-Liberians had their roots in the antebellum American South. The settlers wore top hat and tails and modeled their homes on those of Southern slaveowners. Most Americo-Liberian men were members of the Masonic Order of Liberia, which became heavily involved in the nation's politics.
Liberia has a rich history in textile arts and quilting, as the settlers brought with them their sewing and quilting skills. Liberia hosted National Fairs in 1857 and 1858 in which prizes were awarded for various needle arts. One of the most well-known Liberian quilters was Martha Ann Ricks, who presented a quilt featuring the famed Liberian coffee tree to Queen Victoria in 1892. When President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf moved into the Executive Mansion, she reportedly had a Liberian-made quilt installed in her presidential office.
A rich literary tradition has existed in Liberia for over a century. Edward Wilmot Blyden, Bai T. Moore, Roland T. Dempster and Wilton G. S. Sankawulo are among Liberia's more prominent authors. Moore's novella Murder in the Cassava Patch is considered Liberia's most celebrated novel.
One-third of married Liberian women between the ages of 15–49 are in polygamous marriages. Customary law allows men to have up to four wives.
Liberian cuisine heavily incorporates rice, the country's staple food. Other ingredients include cassava, fish, bananas, citrus fruit, plantains, coconut, okra and sweet potatoes. Heavy stews spiced with habanero and scotch bonnet chilies are popular and eaten with fufu. Liberia also has a tradition of baking imported from the United States that is unique in West Africa.
The most popular sport in Liberia is association football, with President George Weah—the only African to be named FIFA World Player of the Year—being the nation's most famous athlete. The Liberia national football team has reached the Africa Cup of Nations finals twice, in 1996 and 2002.
The second most popular sport in Liberia is basketball. The Liberian national basketball team has reached the AfroBasket twice, in 1983 and 2007.
In Liberia, the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex serves as a multi-purpose stadium. It hosts FIFA World Cup qualifying matches in addition to international concerts and national political events.
Liberia has not yet completely adopted the International System of Units (abbreviated as the SI, also called the metric system). The 1988 Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act designated the metric system as "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce," but in practice the system is in mixed usage, with the population generally preferring customary units and industries either fully metric or mixed.
The Liberian government has begun transitioning away from use of United States customary units to the metric system. However, this change has been gradual, with government reports concurrently using both United States Customary and metric units. In 2018, the Liberian Commerce and Industry Minister announced that the Liberian government is committed to adopting the metric system.
Religion
According to the 2008 National Census, 85.6% of the population practiced Christianity, while Muslims represented a minority of 12.2%. A multitude of diverse Protestant confessions such as Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, United Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) denominations form the bulk of the Christian population, followed by adherents of the Catholic Church and other non-Protestant Christians. Most of these Christian denominations were brought by African-American settlers moving from the United States into Liberia via the American Colonization Society, while some are indigenous—especially Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant ones. Protestantism was originally associated with Black American settlers and their Americo-Liberian descendants, while native peoples initially held to their own animist forms of African traditional religion before largely adopting Christianity. While Christian, many Liberians also participate in traditional, gender-based indigenous religious secret societies, such as Poro for men and Sande for women. The all-female Sande society practices female circumcision.
Muslims comprised 12.2% of the population in 2008, largely represented by the Mandingo and Vai ethnic groups. Liberian Muslims are divided between Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadiyyas, Sufis, and non-denominational Muslims.
In 2008, 0.5% identified adherence to traditional indigenous religions, while 1.5% claimed no religion. A small number of people were Baháʼí, Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist.
The Liberian constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right. While separation of church and state is mandated by the Constitution, Liberia is considered a Christian state in practice. Public schools offer biblical studies, though parents may opt their children out. Commerce is prohibited by law on Sunday and major Christian holidays. The government does not require businesses or schools to excuse Muslims for Friday prayers.
Demographics
As of the 2017 national census, Liberia was home to 4,694,608 people. Of those, 1,118,241 lived in Montserrado County, the most populous county in the country and home to the capital of Monrovia. The Greater Monrovia District has 970,824 residents. Nimba County is the next most populous county, with 462,026 residents. As revealed in the 2008 census, Monrovia is more than four times more populous than all the county capitals combined.
Prior to the 2008 census, the last census had been taken in 1984 and listed the country's population as 2,101,628. The population of Liberia was 1,016,443 in 1962 and increased to 1,503,368 in 1974. , Liberia had the highest population growth rate in the world (4.50% per annum). In 2010 some 43.5% of Liberians were below the age of 15.
The population includes 16 indigenous ethnic groups and various foreign minorities. Indigenous peoples comprise about 95 percent of the population. The 16 officially recognized ethnic groups include the Kpelle, Bassa, Mano, Gio or Dan, Kru, Grebo, Krahn, Vai, Gola, Mandingo or Mandinka, Mende, Kissi, Gbandi, Loma, Dei or Dewoin, Belleh, and Americo-Liberians or Congo people (so named because many immigrants including those freed from slave ships arrived from ports at the mouth of the Congo River).
The Kpelle comprise more than 20% of the population and are the largest ethnic group in Liberia, residing mostly in Bong County and adjacent areas in central Liberia. Americo-Liberians, who are descendants of African American and West Indian, mostly Barbadian (Bajan) settlers, make up 2.5%. Congo people, descendants of repatriated Congo and Afro-Caribbean slaves who arrived in 1825, make up an estimated 2.5%. These latter two groups established political control in the 19th century which they kept well into the 20th century.
The Liberian constitution exercises jus sanguinis, which means it usually restricts its citizenship to "Negroes or persons of Negro descent." That being said, numerous immigrants have come as merchants and become a major part of the business community, including Lebanese, Indians, and other West African nationals. There is a high percentage of interracial marriage between ethnic Liberians and the Lebanese, resulting in a significant mixed-race population especially in and around Monrovia. A small minority of Liberians who are White Africans of European descent reside in the country.
English is the official language and serves as the lingua franca of Liberia. As of 2022, 27 indigenous languages are spoken in Liberia, but each is a first language for only a small percentage of the population. Liberians also speak a variety of creolized dialects collectively known as Liberian English.
According to the 2008 National Census, 85.6% of the population practiced Christianity, while Muslims represented a minority of 12.2%. A multitude of diverse Protestant confessions such as Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, United Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) denominations form the bulk of the Christian population, followed by adherents of the Catholic Church and other non-Protestant Christians. Most of these Christian denominations were brought by African-American settlers moving from the United States into Liberia via the American Colonization Society, while some are indigenous—especially Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant ones. Protestantism was originally associated with Black American settlers and their Americo-Liberian descendants, while native peoples initially held to their own animist forms of African traditional religion before largely adopting Christianity. While Christian, many Liberians also participate in traditional, gender-based indigenous religious secret societies, such as Poro for men and Sande for women. The all-female Sande society practices female circumcision.
Muslims comprised 12.2% of the population in 2008, largely represented by the Mandingo and Vai ethnic groups. Liberian Muslims are divided between Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadiyyas, Sufis, and non-denominational Muslims.
In 2008, 0.5% identified adherence to traditional indigenous religions, while 1.5% claimed no religion. A small number of people were Baháʼí, Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist.
The Liberian constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right. While separation of church and state is mandated by the Constitution, Liberia is considered a Christian state in practice. Public schools offer biblical studies, though parents may opt their children out. Commerce is prohibited by law on Sunday and major Christian holidays. The government does not require businesses or schools to excuse Muslims for Friday prayers.
In 2010, the literacy rate of Liberia was estimated at 60.8% (64.8% for males and 56.8% for females). In some areas primary and secondary education is free and compulsory from the ages of 6 to 16, though enforcement of attendance is lax. In other areas children are required to pay a tuition fee to attend school. On average, children attain 10 years of education (11 for boys and 8 for girls). The country's education sector is hampered by inadequate schools and supplies, as well as a lack of qualified teachers.
Higher education is provided by a number of public and private universities. The University of Liberia is the country's largest and oldest university. Located in Monrovia, the university opened in 1862. Today it has six colleges, including a medical school and the nation's only law school, Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law.
In 2009, Tubman University in Harper, Maryland County was established as the second public university in Liberia. Since 2006, the government has also opened community colleges in Buchanan, Sanniquellie, and Voinjama.
Due to student protests late in October 2018, newly elected president George M. Weah abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students in the public universities in Liberia.
* Cuttington University was established by the Episcopal Church of the USA in 1889 in Suakoko, Bong County, as part of its missionary education work among indigenous peoples. It is the nation's oldest private university.
* Stella Maris Polytechnic, a post-secondary, private institution of higher learning. Founded in 1988, the school is owned and operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Monrovia. Located on Capitol Hill, the school has approximately 2,000 students.
* Adventist University of West Africa, a post-secondary learning environment that is situated in Margibi County, on the Roberts International Airport.
* United Methodist University, a private Christian university located in Liberia, West Africa, it is commonly known amongst locals as UMU. As of 2016, it had approximately 9,118 students. This institution was founded in 1998.
* African Methodist Episcopal University, a private higher education institution that was founded in 1995.
* Starz University, is a private higher education institution that was established in the United States in 2007, and became incorporated in Monrovia, 2009; with the objective of addressing the Information Technology(IT) need of Liberia.
* St. Clements University College (Liberia), a private higher education institution that was founded in 2008.
Hospitals in Liberia include the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia and several others. Life expectancy in Liberia is estimated to be 64.4 years in 2020. With a fertility rate of 5.9 births per woman, the maternal mortality rate stood at 990 per 100,000 births in 2010, and 1,072 per 100,000 births in 2017. A number of highly communicable diseases are widespread, including tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases and malaria. In 2007, the HIV infection rates stood at 2% of the population aged 15–49 whereas the incidence of tuberculosis was 420 per 100,000 people in 2008. Approximately 58.2% – 66% of women are estimated to have undergone female genital mutilation.
Liberia imports 90% of its rice, a staple food, and is extremely vulnerable to food shortages. In 2007, 20.4% of children under the age of five were malnourished. In 2008, only 17% of the population had access to adequate sanitation facilities.
Approximately 95% of the country's healthcare facilities had been destroyed by the time civil war ended in 2003. In 2009, government expenditure on health care per capita was US$22, accounting for 10.6% of total GDP. In 2008, Liberia had only one doctor and 27 nurses per 100,000 people.
In 2014, an outbreak of Ebola virus in Guinea spread to Liberia. , there were 2,812 confirmed deaths from the ongoing outbreak. In early August 2014 Guinea closed its borders to Liberia to help contain the spread of the virus, as more new cases were being reported in Liberia than in Guinea. On May 9, 2015, Liberia was declared Ebola free after six weeks with no new cases.
According to an Overseas Development Institute report, private health expenditure accounts for 64.1% of total spending on health.
Cities:
