Liberia is Africa's oldest republic, but it became better known in the 1990s for its long-running, ruinous civil war and its role in a rebellion in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
Although founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves, Liberia is mostly made up of indigenous Africans, with the slaves' descendants comprising 5% of the population.
The West African nation was relatively calm until 1980 when William Tolbert was overthrown by Sergeant Samuel Doe after food price riots. The coup marked the end of dominance by the minority Americo-Liberians, who had ruled since independence, but heralded a period of instability.
By the late 1980s, arbitrary rule and economic collapse culminated in civil war when Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) militia overran much of the countryside, entering the capital in 1990. Mr Doe was executed.
Fighting intensified as the rebels splintered and battled each other, the Liberian army and West African peacekeepers. In 1995 a peace agreement was signed, leading to the election of Mr Taylor as president.
The respite was brief, with anti-government fighting breaking out in the north in 1999. Mr Taylor accused Guinea of supporting the rebellion. Meanwhile Ghana, Nigeria and others accused Mr Taylor of backing rebels in Sierra Leone.
Matters came to a head in 2003 when Mr Taylor - under international pressure to quit and hemmed in by rebels - stepped down and went into exile in Nigeria. A transitional government steered the country towards elections in 2005.
Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's civil war and many thousands more fled the fighting. The conflict left the country in economic ruin and overrun with weapons. The capital remains without mains electricity and running water. Corruption is rife and unemployment and illiteracy are endemic.
The UN maintains some 15,000 soldiers in Liberia. It is one of the organisation's most expensive peacekeeping operations.
President: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
US-educated economist and former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won the second round of presidential elections in November 2005 and in January 2006 she was inaugurated as Africa's first elected woman head of state. The poll was intended to draw a line under Liberia's war.
Her rival, the footballer and political novice George Weah, alleged fraud. International observers said the vote had been broadly free and fair.
Known in Liberia as the "Iron Lady", Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf drew much of her support from women voters, and from Liberia's small educated elite. She faces the twin challenges of trying to rebuild the country and of fostering reconciliation. One of her priorities is to reintegrate into society former child soldiers. She has declared a "zero tolerance" of corruption.
The president served as finance minister under President William Tolbert in the late 1970s and fled the country after the Tolbert government was overthrown. She has worked for the UN and the World Bank.
Some of the opposition to Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf stems from her one-time association with former Liberian leader Charles Taylor. She briefly supported the then warlord in his quest to overthrow military leader Samuel Doe.
Speaking at Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in February 2009, she admitted to her initial support for Mr Taylor, saying he had misled her into believing the war was necessary for change to happen.
Born in 1938, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is a widowed mother-of-four.
A chronology of key events:
1847 - Constitution modelled on that of the US is drawn up.
1847 July - Liberia becomes independent.
1917 - Liberia declares war on Germany, giving the Allies a base in West Africa.
1926 - Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company opens rubber plantation on land granted by government. Rubber production becomes backbone of economy.
1936 - Forced-labour practices abolished.
1943 - William Tubman elected president.
1944 - Government declares war on the Axis powers.
1951 May - Women and indigenous property owners vote in the presidential election for the first time.
1958 - Racial discrimination outlawed.
1971 - Tubman dies and is succeeded by William Tolbert Jr.
1974 - Government accepts aid from the Soviet Union for the first time.
1978 - Liberia signs trade agreement with the European Economic Community.
1979 - More than 40 people are killed in riots following a proposed increase in the price of rice.
Years of instability
1980 - Master Sergeant Samuel Doe stages military coup. Tolbert and 13 of his aides are publicly executed. A People's Redemption Council headed by Doe suspends constitution and assumes full powers.
1984 - Doe's regime allows return of political parties following pressure from the United States and other creditors.
1985 - Doe wins presidential election.
1989 - National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor begins an uprising against the government.
1990 - Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) sends peacekeeping force. Doe is executed by a splinter group of the NPFL.
1991 - Ecowas and the NPFL agree to disarm and set up an Interim Government of National Unity.
1992 - The NPFL launches an all-out assault on West African peacekeepers in Monrovia, the latter respond by bombing NPFL positions outside the capital and pushing the NPFL back into the countryside.
Tentative ceasefire
1993 - Warring factions devise a plan for a National Transitional Government and a ceasefire, but this fails to materialise and fighting resumes.
1994 - Warring factions agree a timetable for disarmament and the setting up of a joint Council of State.
1995 - Peace agreement signed.
1996 April - Factional fighting resumes and spreads to Monrovia.
1996 August - West African peacekeepers begin disarmament programme, clear land mines and reopen roads, allowing refugees to return.
1997 July - Presidential and legislative elections held. Charles Taylor wins a landslide and his National Patriotic Party wins a majority in the National Assembly. International observers declare the elections free and fair.
Border fighting
1999 January - Ghana and Nigeria accuse Liberia of supporting Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone. Britain and the US threaten to suspend aid to Liberia.
1999 April - Rebel forces thought to have come from Guinea attack town of Voinjama. Fighting displaces more than 25,000 people.
1999 September - Guinea accuses Liberian forces of entering its territory and attacking border villages.
2000 September - Liberian forces launch "massive offensive" against rebels in the north. Liberia accuses Guinean troops of shelling border villages.
2001 February - Liberian government says Sierra Leonean rebel leader Sam Bockarie, also known as Mosquito, has left the country.
2001 May - UN Security Council reimposes arms embargo to punish Taylor for trading weapons for diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone.
2002 January - More than 50,000 Liberians and Sierra Leonean refugees flee fighting. In February Taylor declares a state of emergency.
Rebel offensives
2003 March - Rebels advance to within 10km of Monrovia.
2003 June - Talks in Ghana aimed at ending rebellion overshadowed by indictment accusing President Taylor of war crimes over his alleged backing of rebels in Sierra Leone.
2003 July - Fighting intensifies; rebels battle for control of Monrovia. Several hundred people are killed. West African regional group Ecowas agrees to provide peacekeepers.
Taylor in exile
2003 August - Nigerian peacekeepers arrive. Charles Taylor leaves Liberia after handing power to his deputy Moses Blah. US troops arrive. Interim government and rebels sign peace accord in Ghana. Gyude Bryant chosen to head interim administration.
2003 September-October - US forces pull out. UN launches major peacekeeping mission, deploying thousands of troops.
2004 February - International donors pledge more than $500m in reconstruction aid.
2004 October - Riots in Monrovia leave 16 people dead; the UN says former combatants were behind the violence.
2005 September - Liberia agrees that the international community should supervise its finances in an effort to counter corruption.
Johnson-Sirleaf elected
2005 23 November - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf becomes the first woman to be elected as an African head of state. She takes office the following January.
2006 February - Truth and Reconciliation Commission is set up to investigate human rights abuses between 1979 and 2003.
2006 April - Former president Charles Taylor appears before a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone on charges of crimes against humanity. In June the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court agrees to host his trial.
2006 June - UN Security Council eases a ban on weapons sales so Liberia can arm newly trained security forces. An embargo on Liberian timber exports is lifted shortly afterwards.
2006 July - President Johnson-Sirleaf switches on generator-powered street lights in the capital, which has been without electricity for 15 years.
2007 April - UN Security Council lifts its ban on Liberian diamond exports. The ban was imposed in 2001 to stem the flow of "blood diamonds", which helped to fund the civil war.
2007 May - UN urges Liberia to outlaw trial by ordeal.
Taylor on trial
2007 June - Start of Charles Taylor's war crimes trial in The Hague, where he stands accused of instigating atrocities in Sierra Leone.
2007 December - UN Security Council extended arms and travel embargoes for another year in response to increased gun violence.
2008 January - Supreme Court rules that the president can appoint local mayors because the government cannot afford to hold municipal elections. Municipal elections have not been held since 1985 because of financial constraints and successive civil wars.
2008 February - US President George W Bush ends a five-country tour of Africa with a visit to Liberia, one of America's staunchest allies on the continent.
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2008 March - Liberia conducts its first census since 1984.
2008 December - More than 100 inmates escape from Liberia's only maximum security prison in the capital, Monrovia.
2009 January - President Johnson-Sirleaf declares state of emergency in response to a plague of crop-destroying army worms affecting about 400,000 residents in 80 villages.
2009 February - President Johnson-Sirleaf admits to Truth and Reconciliation Commission that she mistakenly backed ex-President Charles Taylor when he launched the 14-year civil war in 1989.
2009 May - Jury acquits ex-President Gyude Bryant of embezzling about $1m while in office.
The Hague war crimes tribunal rejects a request to acquit ex-president Taylor on charges of crimes against humanity.
2009 July - Truth Commission submits report to parliament, recommends prosecuting 200 people and listing others who should be barred from public office, including President Johnson-Sirleaf.
Former president Charles Taylor takes the stand in The Hague at his trial for war crimes.
2009 August - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits.
2009 September - UN Security Council votes to extend mandate of UN forces in Liberia (UNMIL) into 2010 to help with 2011 elections.
