Bissau

A Portuguese trading post was established at Bissau in 1687 on the south bank of the Geba estuary, where deep water let ships load close to shore. The settlement began as a fortified factory dealing in enslaved people and other goods with the Papel kingdom whose land it stood on, and its fortress, São José da Amura, was begun in the 1690s. For most of the next two centuries it was small and sickly, one of several rival posts on the coast, and Portuguese authority reached little beyond the walls.

Bolama, an island town to the south, was made the colonial capital in 1879, but Bissau's deeper harbour and mainland position told in the end: the administration moved here in 1941, and the city was laid out with avenues, a cathedral begun in 1935, ministries and the port installations that still define the centre. In August 1959, striking dock workers at the Pidjiguiti wharf were fired on and many were killed, an event the independence movement treated as proof that peaceful protest was useless and as the beginning of the armed struggle.

The war for independence was fought in the countryside, and Bissau remained in Portuguese hands until 1974. Since independence it has been the stage for the country's repeated upheavals: the 1980 coup, the war of 1998 and 1999, which ruined many buildings in the centre and drove hundreds of thousands of residents from the city, and later coups and assassinations. The presidential palace was among the buildings ruined in that fighting. In November 2025 the army again took power, detaining the president, and a military-led transitional government has run the country since.

Bissau is the meeting place of a country with more than twenty ethnic groups. Balanta, Papel, Fula, Mandinka, Manjaco, Bijagó and others live in its quarters, and Kriol is the language that holds them together — a Portuguese-based creole that carries its own strong identity and is the language of music, humour and the street.

Music is the city's great cultural product. Gumbe, a style that fuses about ten of the country's folk music traditions, is the genre most associated with it and remains the sound of its bars and street parties, alongside zouk and other imported styles. Bands play at open-air bars in the evening, and drumming and dance accompany the ceremonies of individual communities.

The carnival before Lent is the capital's biggest event and the clearest expression of its mix. Neighbourhood groups spend months making costumes and floats, and Bijagó dancers bring their carved bull and shark masks from the islands to the city's streets. Religious life is layered rather than divided: Muslim, Catholic and traditional practice coexist, often in the same family, and shrines and sacred sites are treated with care. Manners are relaxed and unhurried, and appointments are approximate.

Bissau holds roughly half a million people, something like a quarter of the country's population, and it grows as families move in from the countryside. Away from the few paved avenues, the city is a spread of single-storey compounds on sand roads, with open drains, standpipes and shops built into front rooms. The electricity supply is unreliable, with frequent power cuts, and generators are common.

The economy runs on trade, the port and the state. Cashew is one of the country's main exports, and the season fills the port and the roads with lorries and traders, its price setting the mood of the year. Most people work informally: market selling, transport, fishing, workshops and building. Public salaries are paid late or not at all in difficult periods, and remittances from relatives abroad support many households.

The day starts early, before the heat, with markets busiest in the morning; the middle of the afternoon is slow, and the evening belongs to the streets, the grills and the bars, with music from open doorways. Rain dominates life from June to October, when unpaved quarters flood and movement across the city becomes difficult.

Rice is the centre of everything. The usual meal is a plate of rice under a sauce — groundnut, palm oil, or leaves such as cassava or baobab — cooked with fish, chicken or a little meat. Caldo de mancarra, a thick groundnut stew often made with chicken, is a classic, and caldo de chabéu, a fish stew made with the pulp of the oil palm fruit, is its rich red counterpart. Jollof-style rice cooked in one pot with tomato and fish appears everywhere.

Fish and shellfish are abundant and cheap: fish grilled over charcoal, prawns from the creeks, and mangrove oysters, which are smoked or grilled and sold by the bag along the roadside. Portuguese habits survive in the bread eaten at breakfast, in the use of piri-piri chilli sauce, and in the small bars that serve strong coffee and beer.

Fruit is plentiful in season — mango, papaya, orange, banana — and cashew is used twice over: the nut roasted and exported, and the juice of the fruit drunk fresh or fermented into a strong spirit, which is common in the countryside. Palm wine tapped from the oil palm is the traditional drink at ceremonies, and sweet strong tea, soft drinks and locally sold beer complete the list.