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The Republic of Niger, boasting a land area of 1,267,000 km², is the largest country within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Two-thirds of its territory lies in the Saharan zone. Niger is actually landlocked, sandwiched along the southern reaches of the Sahara at the heart of the West African Sahel; it is surrounded to the west by Mali and Burkina Faso, to the south by Nigeria and Benin, to the east by Chad, and to the north by Algeria and Libya. Its closest borders to the sea are still 700 km from the Gulf of Guinea. In 2018, Niger's population was estimated at roughly 21 million.