Dakar

Did You Know?

• Dakar was selected as the Capital of Islamic Culture for the African Region for 2007 by ISESCO.
• The Layene Brotherhood, a Sufi tariqa founded in 1883 at Yoff, is based in the Cap-Vert area and is the third-biggest Sufi order in Senegal.

History

The Cap-Vert peninsula was settled by the Lebu people, a subgroup of the Wolof, no later than the 15th century. Original villages such as Ouakam, Ngor, Yoff and Hann remain Lebou neighborhoods. The Portuguese reached the Bay of Dakar in 1444, and peaceful contact was established in 1456 by Diogo Gomes. The bay, called Angra de Bezeguiche, became a critical stop for Portuguese India Armadas in the early 16th century.

In 1501, Amerigo Vespucci began forming his 'New World' hypothesis during a stop there. A town grew as a major port of Cayor, a kingdom that broke from the Jolof Empire in 1549. The Portuguese founded a settlement on Gorée Island, using it for slave exportation by 1536. A new Lebou village, Ndakaaru, was established across from Gorée in the 17th century to supply the European factory.

Gorée was captured by the United Netherlands in 1588, then by the English in 1664, and finally by the French in 1677. Multiracial people dominated the slave trade under French rule. The House of Slaves was built on Gorée in 1776.

Geography

Dakar lies on the Cap-Vert peninsula on the Atlantic coast, the westernmost city on mainland Africa. Its climate is a tropical hot semi-arid type, with a short rainy season from July to October and a dry season covering the other eight months. Annual rainfall is about 411 mm. A 2019 study estimated that under a moderate climate-change scenario, Dakar's climate in 2050 would resemble that of Praia, Cape Verde, with an annual temperature increase of 1.5 °C.

Administration

The city of Dakar is a commune, one of 125 communes in Senegal, created by French colonial administration on 17 June 1887 by detaching it from the commune of Gorée. The commune of Gorée, created in 1872, was among the oldest Western-style municipalities in Africa. Dakar's commune has existed continuously since 1887, with its limits unchanged since 1983. It is governed by a democratically elected municipal council serving five years and a mayor elected by the council. The first black mayor was Blaise Diagne, serving from 1924 to 1934; the longest-serving mayor was Mamadou Diop, from 1984 to 2002. The commune of Dakar is also a department, similar to Paris, but Senegalese departments have no political power and are local administrative structures of the central state. The department is divided into four arrondissements: Almadies, Grand Dakar, Parcelles Assainies, and Plateau/Gorée.

Transport

Dakar's transportation is managed by the Conseil Exécutif des Transports Urbains Durables, set up in 1997. A 2021 study from this body estimated that bad air, traffic jams, dangerous roads, and noise cost Senegal nearly 900 billion CFA francs each year, roughly 6% of the country's GDP. The city hosts the Autonomous Port of Dakar and the dead end of the now-defunct Dakar-Niger railway. Three Trans-African Highways begin here: the Cairo-Dakar, Dakar-Ndjamena, and Dakar-Lagos routes.

The Train Express Regional will link Dakar to Blaise Diagne International Airport, with a first 36-kilometer stretch to Diamniadio and a later 19-kilometer extension to the airport. It will serve 14 stations, carry an estimated 115,000 passengers daily, and take 45 minutes end to end. Its first test run happened in January 2019, with passenger service starting in December 2021. The city also runs Sunu BRT, a fully electric bus rapid transit network with two active routes and two more planned.

It uses 144 articulated e-buses and 32 feeder routes. The system is projected to move 300,000 passengers each day, cutting travel time from 95 to 45 minutes. After its launch, 69% of residents can reach the city center within an hour, up from just 12% before.