Douala

Douala (d-ä`lə), city (1991 est. pop. 1,604,500), Cameroon, on the Wuori River estuary. Cameroon's largest city and major port, it is a commercial and transportation center handling most of the country's exports (chiefly cocoa and coffee) as well as transit trade from Chad. Douala developed as a center of the slave trade after the Portuguese arrived in 1472. It later became part of a German protectorate (1884) and of the French Cameroons (1919).

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Douala

City (pop., 1992 est.: 1,200,000), chief port of Cameroon, on the Bight of Biafra. It was the capital of German Kamerun and later of French Cameroun and was taken from the Germans in 1914. Cameroon's largest city, it is one of Central Africa's major industrial centres, and its deepwater port handles most of the country's overseas trade. It is home to a variety of commercial, agricultural, and industrial schools; a museum and handicraft centre encourage the production and preservation of Cameroonian art.

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Douala, Duala

the chief port and largest city in W Cameroon, on the Bight of Bonny: capital of the German colony of Kamerun (1901--16). Pop.: 1 980 000 (2005 est.)

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Douala 

(also Duala), a city in West Cameroon and an important industrial, trading, political, and cultural center. Population, 250,000 (1969, including the suburbs).

Douala is the country’s principal seaport (with a cargo turnover of 1.7 million tons in 1969) and a transportation junction. It has a major airport. The city is located on the left bank of the Wouri River, 21 km from where the river flows into the Gulf of Guinea; a bridge connects the city with the port of Bonaberi on the right bank of the river. Exports include wood products, cacao, coffee, palm kernels and oil, cotton and aluminum. Part of the freight traffic of neighboring African countries, including the Central African Republic and the Republic of Chad, passes through Douala. The city has a shipyard and woodworking, food-processing, textile, and footwear enterprises. There is also a bicycle-assembly plant and a glass factory, and farm implements are produced.