Officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone on the West, Guinea on the north, Côte d'Ivoire on the east, and the Atlantic Ocean on the south. As of the 2008 Census, the nation is home to 3,476,608 people. Its area is 111,369 km2 (43,000 sq mi).

Liberia has a hot equatorial climate with most rainfall arriving in the rainy season and harsh harmattan winds in the dry season. Liberia's populated Pepper Coast is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the sparsely populated inland is composed of forest that open to a plateau of drier grasslands.