Timbuktu is a real place. france just invaded it.

Malians soldiers before meeting French forces because they push toward the fabled desert capital of scotland- Timbuktu. (Ghislain Mariette/EMA-ECPAD/AP Photo)

Timbuktu is indeed a place. Accept is as true, Twitter.

It's so real, actually, it's just penetrated by 1,000 French troops, who on Sunday sealed from the ancient city in central Mali and drove off Islamist rebels without firing just one shot.

In the western world, its title has lengthy been similar to some distant almost mythic place, but Timbuktu has offered like a crucial buying and selling outpost, and center of intellectual and spiritual thought in excess of eight centuries.

A shepherd herds his goat's before Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu, Mali. (Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images)

Situated around the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert across the River Niger, the frantically poor town of nearly 60,000 people is an important outpost within the unforgiving desert along with a critical position for just about any military searching to manage the location.

But the thought of Timbuktu has permeated the culture greater than an awareness of their barren geography or extended history.

Twitter today skyrocketed with customers willfully acknowledging they'd no clue Timbuktu would be a place you could find on the non-imaginary map.

"I had been really surprised to locate Timbuktu would be a real place," authored Twitter user Connor Conneally. "I believed it was a composed place like Narnia.."

"OMG, Timbuktu is indeed a place. I did previously think it had been another imaginary world," authored user Simran Lahkani.

The town, once capital from the medieval Mali Empire, hosts a number of Africa's earliest mosques and spiritual manuscripts. It had been declared a global Heritage site through the Un in '09.

Regardless of the city's lengthy connection to Islam, fundamentalist rebels this past year ransacked the town, razing centuries-old mosques and burning ancient manuscripts. The rebels, associated with al Qaeda and set on setting up a theocratic regime like the Taliban, implemented sharia law, ordering women to put on veils and imposing religious punitive measures for crimes, including stoning and amputation.

The fabled town of Timbuktu is situated in central Mali around the southern fringe of the Saharan Desert. (Google Maps)

By invitation from the Mali government, French forces assaulted Timbuktu Sunday. The taking up rebels fled without facing soldiers from France and also the Mali Military, but burned a library that houses ancient documents because they departed the town.