Senegal

Senegal is the westernmost country of mainland Africa, on the Atlantic between Mauritania, Mali, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. It almost encloses the Gambia and takes its name from the Senegal River on its northern border.

Dakar, on the Cap-Vert peninsula at the western tip of the continent, is the capital. French is the official language, while Wolof serves as the common tongue, and Pulaar, Serer and Jola are among about 39 languages spoken. Eastern Senegal once lay within the Ghana Empire, and kingdoms such as Takrur arose from the 6th century. In the 14th century the Jolof Empire of Ndiadiane Ndiaye joined Cayor, Baol, Sine, Saloum, Waalo and other states in a voluntary confederacy that lasted until around 1549. Portuguese ships reached the coast in the mid-15th century, and France pushed inland from the 1850s under Governor Louis Faidherbe. On 25 November 1958 Senegal gained self-rule as a republic inside the French Union and joined French Sudan in the Mali Federation in January 1959. The federation won independence on 20 June 1960, and Senegal declared its own on 20 August 1960.

Senegal is a semi-presidential republic: the president is elected for five years, and the National Assembly of 150 seats is the parliament. Its first president, the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, became the first African elected to the Académie française. Groundnuts are the main crop, and food processing, mining, cement, fertilizer, chemicals and textiles are the main industries. Fish, cotton, fabrics, groundnuts and calcium phosphate are sold abroad, and the land, mostly sandy Sahel plain, covers almost 197,000 km2 (76,000 sq mi).

Griots pass West African history from one generation to the next through spoken stories and music. Mbalax grew from Serer drumming and spread through Youssou N'Dour, and Orchestra Baobab and Baaba Maal also come from Senegal. Teranga, the Wolof word for hospitality, gives the football team its name, Lions of Teranga, who reached the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002 and won the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in 2022. The Paris–Dakar rally finished in the capital from 1979 to 2007, and the African Renaissance Monument there was built in 2010. Cooks rely on fish, rice, couscous and peanuts, with juices of bissap and baobab fruit.