Yaoundé

The city began as a German post set up among the Ewondo in the late 1880s, and from 1889 served as an agricultural research station named Jaunde after them. Its altitude and relatively healthy climate made it useful for the ivory and rubber trade and for research stations, and a small administrative settlement grew on the hills above the Mfoundi valley while Douala remained the colony's capital.

The First World War changed its standing. When Allied forces took the coast, the German administration retreated inland, and after the war France governed the larger part of the territory under a League of Nations mandate and moved its capital from Douala to Yaoundé in 1922. The move gave the town its permanent character as the seat of officials rather than merchants; ministries, barracks, schools and missions filled the hills, and the Catholic mission became one of the strongest in Central Africa.

Cameroon became independent in 1960 with Yaoundé as its capital, and the city remained the capital of the federation formed with the former British Southern Cameroons in 1961 and of the united republic after 1972. Ahmadou Ahidjo and, from 1982, Paul Biya governed from the Palais de l'Unité at Etoudi, and the Reunification Monument raised in the 1970s marked the union. The population has multiplied many times since independence, spreading over hills that were farmland within living memory, and the city has grown further with people displaced from the conflicts in the north-west, south-west and far north.

Yaoundé sits in Beti country, and the Ewondo language is heard on the streets alongside French, often blended into camfranglais, the slang of young people. The city gave national fame to bikutsi, the fast, syncopated dance music that grew out of Beti women's songs and, through bands such as Les Têtes Brûlées, reached audiences abroad in the 1980s and 90s; it still fills bars and clubs at weekends, where it competes with makossa from the coast.

As the capital it is also the country's cultural shop window. The National Museum occupies the former presidential palace, the Blackitude Museum holds a private collection of masks and royal objects, and the French and other cultural institutes run concerts, exhibitions and film programmes, among them the Écrans Noirs festival of African cinema. The Benedictine monastery on Mont Fébé houses the museum of Cameroonian art, with carvings, masks and craftwork from around the country.

Church attendance is high, and Catholic and Presbyterian congregations are large and well organised, with choirs an important part of social life. Funerals and family celebrations run over whole weekends and often involve travel to the village of origin. Football is followed closely, the national team's matches emptying the streets, and manners are noticeably formal: greetings before business, and an unhurried exchange about family before anything else.

The capital's population was put at about 4.1 million in 2020, which keeps it close to Douala in size, and it is still growing outward across the hills. Government is the main employer — ministries, the presidency, the army, the university and a large diplomatic community — alongside trade, construction, transport and an informal economy of market stalls, workshops and taxis.

Days start early. Commuters fill shared taxis and motorbike taxis to reach offices by half past seven, buying beignets, beans and maize porridge from stalls on the way, and the working day ends in long jams as the hills funnel traffic onto a few routes. Quarters differ sharply in comfort: Bastos and parts of the centre are spacious and well served, while Briqueterie, Mokolo and the valley bottoms are dense and prone to flooding in heavy rain.

Power cuts, water shortages and the cost of rent and transport are the recurring complaints of city life, and jobs are scarce for the many graduates the universities produce. The city has absorbed large numbers of people displaced by conflict elsewhere in Cameroon. Weekends run to church, football, funerals and family gatherings, and many residents keep close ties to a home village on the plateau, returning for ceremonies and for the dry-season holidays.

Yaoundé eats the food of the Beti and the forest plateau. Okok, the shredded leaves of the Gnetum vine cooked with ground peanuts and palm oil, is the dish most associated with the city, served with cassava, plantain or a bâton de manioc. Kpem, pounded cassava leaves with palm nut, and sanga, young maize cooked with cassava leaves, are common household meals, and nnam owondo — peanut pudding steamed in leaves — is sold by the piece in the markets.

The national favourites are everywhere too: ndolé from the coast, poulet DG, chicken sautéed with fried plantain and vegetables, and grilled fish with hot pepper sauce. The Briqueterie quarter brings the cooking of the north, with grilled meat, brochettes and sweet tea, while the streets around the markets sell koki, roasted maize, ripe plantain and safou, the purple bush plum roasted until soft.

Breakfast is street food: beignets with beans and pap, or an omelette sandwich made to order. Palm wine comes in from the surrounding villages, matango in the local name, and is drunk in the open-air bars found on almost every hillside street alongside locally brewed beer. Coffee grown in the highlands is served strong and sweet at pavement stalls.