Timbuktu! No city in the world conjures such images of romance and adventure. NBC News' Richard Engel journeys to the lost city of gold — the end of the earth, terra incognita — where old maps ...

This West African city—long synonymous with the uttermost end of the Earth—was added to the World Heritage List in 1988, many centuries after its apex. Timbuktu was a center of Islamic ...

Timbuktu's Treasures Are Being Destroyed As World Watches Helplessly : The Two-Way Muslim extremists are pillaging Sufi tombs and mosques. They're ignoring international protests. To them, the ...

By the time gold and silver were discovered in the New World, Timbuktu's days as a center of trade were numbered, Launay says. "So, West African gold ceased to be strategic," he says.

When people refer to the ends of the earth, they invariably mention Timbuktu. The fabled West African city on the cusp of the Sahara has a mystique that has lasted for centuries.