Saint-Louis Senegal

Saint-Louis Senegal, an island with a strategic position at the mouth of the Senegal River, was founded in 1659 by the French as a slave and gum arabic trading post. Located between the mainland of Senegal and the ‘Langue of Barbarie’ it is a narrow strip of land floating in the Atlantic Ocean, connected to the mainland by the 500-m (1,640-ft Faidherbe steel bridge, which is a work of art in its own right. The district of Sor, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a lively fishing village that retains much of its charming French colonial architecture with wrought iron balconies and verandas, a reminder of its early occupation.

In 1790, Saint-Louis Senegal was a dynamic port town and an important commercial centre with a growing population in the tens of thousands. A starting point for the French colonisation of Africa, the city was alive with European, African and mixed-race peoples. Saint-Louis was the capital of Senegal from the beginning of the nineteenth century until 1958, when Dakar took its place.

Faidherbe Bridge The Symbol Of Saint-Louis City, Senegal | Source : en.wikipedia.org

Among the sites and monuments to see on the island are the Governor’s Palace, a fortress built in the eighteenth century across from Place Faidherbe, a sandy square where a statue is erected in governor Louis Faidherbe’s honour. Also of interest are the museum at the southern end of the island, the large Roman Catholic Cathedral and numerous mosques.

Although the centre of town is concentrated on the island of Saint-Louis itself, the urban sprawl continues in both directions on the mainland, the northern part occupying a long, sparse beach that stretches to the border of Mauritania as well as the nearby Parc des Oiseaux du Djoudj, famous for its bird life. Along with Goree Island, Saint-Louis Senegal remains the most characteristically French colonial destination in West Africa.