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Saint-Louis, Senegal

Saint-Louis or Saint-Louis du Sénégal (locally called Ndar in the Wolof language) is a city (pop. ~180,000) in the northwest of Senegal near the mouth of the Senegal River. It is the capital of the Saint-Louis region.

Saint-Louis was the capital of French West Africa until 1902, when it was replaced by Dakar. It dominated the Senegal River trade in gum-arabic, salt and slaves for centuries. There is a large Roman Catholic Cathedral, a large new mosque, and numerous other churches and mosques. The architectural style of the city is old French colonial. At the centre of town is a sandy square, Parc Faidherbe, named for the famous French governor Louis Faidherbe. He bought and had transported from Germany the long steel bridge that joins the Saint-Louis island to the mainland at Sor; his statue is in the park. There are a number of colonial-era hotels, including the Hotel de la Poste that was made famous when Saint-Louis was a crucial station in the earliest transatlantic air trade. The historic airport is at Dakar-Bango on the mainland.

The centre of the town is concentrated on the island of St. Louis , in the Senegal River, and the sprawl continues in both directions. The north of the city has a long and sparse beach which terminates at a closed border with Mauritania. The main suburbs include Sor and Pikine. There is a fishing community on the Atlantic shore on the Langue de Barbarie peninsula.

A university, the Universite Gaston-Berger is east of town. Nearby tourist attractions include the Parc Nationale de l'Oiseux du Djoudj famous for its birds, the Langue de Barbarie and other beaches, the Kingdom of Biffeche with its white king, the colonial French Usines de Mbakhana , the palace of Baron Roger at Richard-Toll, the Maka-Diama dam , and various hunting lodges on the south side of the Senegal River.

The city is twinned with Lille, France.

Saint-Louis has been a major cultural center of the Franco-Wolof society and culture, and it has a long history as the interface between France and the Kingdom of Waalo and the rest of far West Africa. Economically, since 1902 when it was supplanted by Dakar, the city has declined in importance. The economy today is based mainly on foreign aid, fishing and irrigated alluvial agriculture, and the surrounding higher areas are dominated by the pastoral practices of the Peulh people. For tourists it remains the most characteristically French colonial destination in West Africa along with Goree Island.

Last updated: 05-02-2005 01:26:30