Senegal

Senegal reaches further west than any other part of mainland Africa, at the volcanic Cap-Vert peninsula. Its northern edge follows the Senegal River through dry Sahel country. Further south the Gambia River cuts deep into the country, and beyond that narrow strip lies the Casamance, all rice paddies, palm groves and mangrove creeks. Shell mounds heaped up by fishing people over many centuries dot the islands of the Saloum delta. Most rain falls between July and October.

Rings of standing stones along the Gambia River mark ancient burial grounds. Takrur, on the Senegal River, adopted Islam in the eleventh century, and the Jolof empire later united the Wolof states. Portuguese caravels rounded the peninsula in the 1440s, and Gorée, a small island offshore, became a slaving post that passed between European powers. France founded Saint-Louis in 1659 and from 1902 governed all of French West Africa from Dakar. Independence came in 1960, with the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor as president.

Most Senegalese belong to Sufi brotherhoods, and the Grand Magal brings huge crowds each year to Touba, the holy city founded by Amadou Bamba of the Mourides. Hospitality has its own Wolof word, teranga. Thieboudienne, fish simmered with rice and vegetables, is the main meal of the day. Youssou N’Dour took mbalax to concert halls abroad, and laamb wrestlers fill stadiums. Painted pirogues set out from Kayar and Joal, and groundnuts, phosphate rock, gold and the port of Dakar carry the economy.