Sierra Leone officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

. It is bordered by Guinea

Guinea

Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

 to the north and east, Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

 to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of 71740 km² (27,699 sq mi) and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4 million. It was a colony under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company

Sierra Leone Company

The Sierra Leone Company was the corporate body involved in founding the second British colony in Africa in 1792 through the resettlement of black American ex-slaves who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War...

 from March 11, 1792 until it became a British colony in 1808.