SIERRA LEONE

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, informally Salone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea to the northeast. Sierra Leone has a tropical climate with a diverse environment ranging from savanna to rainforests, a total area of 71,740 km² (27,699 sq mi) and a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. The capital and largest city is Freetown. The country is divided into five administrative regions which are subdivided into sixteen districts. Sierra Leone achieved independence from Britain on 27 April 1961, and Milton Margai became the first Prime Minister. Margai's political party was the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), under the leadership of Albert Margai, and it narrowly lost the 1967 Sierra Leone parliamentary elections to the main opposition party of the All People's Congress (APC) led by Siaka Stevens.

Stevens was a political strongman who ruled Sierra Leone from 1967 to 1985 when he retired from politics due to poor health. On 19 April 1971, Stevens' government abolished Sierra Leone's parliamentary system and declared Sierra Leone a presidential republic. From 1978 to 1985, president Stevens’ APC party was the only legal political party in Sierra Leone. The multiparty democratic constitution of Sierra Leone was adopted in 1991 by the government of President Joseph Saidu Momoh, Stevens' hand-picked successor, just as the rebel group Revolutionary United Front led by Foday Sankoh launched a brutal civil war in the country.

On 29 April 1992, a group of Junior soldiers in the Sierra Leone Army led by Captain Valentine Strasser overthrew President Momoh, and Sierra Leone was under Military rule from 1992 to 1996 during the civil war. The country returned to a democratically elected government when the military Junta under Brigadier General Julius Maada Bio handed the presidency to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the SLPP after his victory in the 1996 election. However, the Sierra Leone military overthrew President Kabbah in a coup on 25 May 1997, and Major General Johnny Paul Koroma became the country's head of state. A coalition of West African Ecowas armed forces led by Nigeria then reinstated President Kabbah by military force in February 1998, and the leaders of the coup were executed after they were sentenced to death by a Sierra Leone military court. In January 2002, President Kabbah announced the end of the civil war with the help of Ecowas, the British government, the African Union, and the United Nations. Sierra Leone has had an uninterrupted democratic government from 1998 to present.

Unlike other British colonies, stamps of Great Britain were never officially used in Sierra Leone although examples from ships of the anti-slavery West Africa Squadron exist with local cancellations. The first stamp of Sierra Leone was a 6d issued on 21 September 1859. A new set portraying Queen Victoria was issued in 1872, and this design continued in use until 1896. In 1896–97, a Victorian key type set of thirteen was issued. In 1897, 1d, 3d, 6d, 1s and 2s fiscal stamps were overprinted "POSTAGE AND REVENUE" and additionally surcharged 2½d (the 1d was never surcharged). All King Edward VII stamps are key types.

The first stamps of independent Sierra Leone were a definitive issue with the coat of arms instead of the Queen. In 1964, the new currency of cents and leones replaced the old British currency. This resulted in a large number of stamps overprinted with the new currency. Many stamps issued between 1964 and 1971 were in strange shapes, as those of Tonga. The country became a Republic in 1971, and although the republic's first issue was in the shape of a lion's head, later stamps were rectangular. Sierra Leone regularly issues both thematic and commemorative stamps. Sierra Leone issued the first self-adhesive stamp in February 1964, made by British printer Walsall.