What was the Gambia's original name?

The first known name given to the area that is now the Gambia is probably the Mali Empire. By the late 1300s, most of the current Gambian territory was under the control of the Mali Empire in Western Africa, also comprising large parts of modern Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal. Before this, there probably was no one area called Gambia, rather, the region would have been divided into a number of smaller groups or tribes. Gambia has since been controlled, at least partially, by the Portuguese, the Polish-Lithuanians, the British, the French, and the United States, but mostly the British, until gaining independence as the Gambia in 1965.