the capital of the Republic of Senegal. One of the most important industrial, transportation, and commercial-trade centers of West Africa. Situated on the Cape Verde Peninsula, at the junction of important sea routes from Europe to South Africa and South America. Climate is sub-equatorial; average temperature, 22° C in January and 28° C in July; it rains (572 mm annually) from July to October. Area, about 30 sq km; including the Cape Verde Peninsula and Gorée Island, 550 sq km. Population, 650,000 (1970, including suburbs); 185,400 in 1948; 92,000 in 1936. The population is 90 percent African, including Wolofs, Lebus, and Tukulors. Most of the European inhabitants are French.
Dakar was founded in 1857 as a French fort. In 1895 it was incorporated into the French colony of Senegal and from 1895 to 1960 was the center of the colony. From 1904 to 1959 it was the administrative center of French West Africa. During World War II, Dakar was occupied by Anglo-American forces (1942) and became an important base for naval operations in the Atlantic Ocean and also one of the strongpoints of the Free French movement. In 1960, Dakar became the capital of the Republic of Senegal.
Four-fifths of the country’s industrial enterprises are located in Dakar and its surroundings. The peanut-processing industry—that is, the oil extraction, which yields over three-fourths of the country’s peanut oil—and the soapmaking industry are important in terms of exportation. The oil-processing plants are controlled by French capital and the soapmaking by English and Dutch. The products offish canneries (canned tuna, filets, and frozen fish) are also exported. Flour mills, breweries, bakeries, and tobacco, match, and textile plants cater to the African market.
Dakar has a large oil refinery, a cement factory, chemical plants, and two thermoelectric generating stations (capacity 90,000 kw). It is a major port on the Atlantic, with a deep harbor, and it handles about 5 million tons a year, including 2 million tons of fuel and fresh water for passing ships. The main exports are shelled peanuts, peanut oil, and phosphates. The city has a railroad station and an international airport, Yoff.
There has been intensive building in Dakar since 1947. In the eastern part of the city are the port and the industrial district; in the south is the administrative center (Place de l’lndépendance) and the government center (Place Etoile), and the business district, with multistory buildings (the National Assembly, the bank, and the university); and in the west is the European residential quarter, consisting of three circles with streets radiating from them. In the northwest there is the Medina region with one-story mud huts.
Dakar has a university, a polytechnical institute (lycée De-lafosse), a school of arts with a drama division, and the Pasteur scientific research institute. Attached to the university are a number of scholarly institutions, among them the In-stitut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN). The university library is the largest in Senegal, with 130,000 volumes. The Dakar Museum and the Historical Museum are on Gorée Island. The Daniel Sorano Theater is the largest in West Africa.