Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the west coast of Africa, bounded by Sierra Leone to the northwest, Guinea to the north, C�te d'Ivoire to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest.

Liberia, which means 'Land of the Free', was founded as an independent nation by the American Colonization Society, with support of the American government, for free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans.

Recently it has witnessed two civil wars, the First Liberian Civil War (1989�1996), and the Second Liberian Civil War (1999�2003), which between them have displaced hundreds of thousands and destroyed its economy.