Answer:
Ghana and Mali were similar in that each kingdom was located in West Africa, and their power depended on control of the gold-salt trade routes stretching east to the Sahara Desert. They were different in that Ghana was an older polity, having collapsed before Mali would rise to power.
Step-by-step explanation:
Wagadou, commonly known as the Ghana Empire, was a West African empire based in the modern-day southeast of Mauritania and western Mali that existed from c. 300 until c. 1100. The Ghana empire, sometimes also known as Awkar, was founded by the Soninke people and was based in the capital city of Koumbi Saleh.