''Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' or ''Book of Highways and Kingdoms'' ( ar, كتاب المسالك والممالك, rtl=yes, ) is the name of an eleventh-century

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

text by

Abu Abdullah al-Bakri Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī ( ar, أبو عبيد عبد الله بن عبد العزيز بن محمد بن أيوب بن عمرو البكري), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1 ...

. It was written in 1067-8 in Córdoba,

al-Andalus Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, ...

(present day Spain). Al-Bakri based his work on the accounts of traders, the writings of

Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq () (* 904 in Guadalajara; † 973 or 974 in Córdoba) (in present-day Spain) was an Andalusían historian and geographer. Life He spent many years in Kairouan and returned to Cordoba during the reign of Caliph al ...

, (''On the Topography of North Africa''), and

Abraham ben Jacob Ibrahim ibn Yaqub ( ar, إبراهيم بن يعقوب ''Ibrâhîm ibn Ya'qûb al-Ṭarṭûshi'' or ''al-Ṭurṭûshî''; he, אברהם בן יעקב, ''Avraham ben Yaʿakov''; 961–62) was a tenth-century Hispano-Arabic, Sephardi Jewish t ...

. Despite the fact that al-Bakri never left al-Andalus, his writings are regarded as objectively reporting the accounts of other travelers by contemporary historians, and much of what he wrote is substantiated in other sources. He described a wide array of regions from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, through the

Sahara , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

, to

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...

, giving descriptions of the geography, people, culture and political situation in each region. The ''Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' exists today only in fragmentary form. It is sometimes confused with a work by the same name written in the ninth century by

Ibn Khordadbeh Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh ( ar, ابوالقاسم عبیدالله ابن خرداذبه; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking Persian bureaucrat and ...

References

Islamic-spain.tv: Geography and al-Andalus
- ''Website of a documentary on the rise, reign, and fall of Islamic Spain''. Geographical works of the medieval Islamic world 11th-century Arabic books History of the Sahara Geography of Africa {{manuscript-stub