Pointe-Noire

Pointe-Noire takes its name from the dark rocky point that Portuguese navigators marked on their charts in the fifteenth century. For centuries the coast belonged to the Kingdom of Loango, ruled by the Vili from a capital near present-day Diosso, and the bay at Loango just to the north was one of the great slave-trading harbours of the Atlantic, trading with French, Dutch and English merchants.

The modern city dates from 1923, when the French chose a fishing village on the bay as the ocean terminus of the Congo-Ocean Railway. The line to Brazzaville, built between 1921 and 1934 across the Mayombe hills, cost the lives of many thousands of forced labourers, and a deepwater port was built with it. From 1950 to 1958 Pointe-Noire served as the capital of the colony of Middle Congo, and the town grew quickly around the quays, the station and the workers' quarters inland.

Offshore oil changed everything again. The fields found off this coast and exploited from about 1980 drew international companies, service firms and a steady migration from the interior. The city largely escaped the worst of the fighting that struck Brazzaville in the 1990s and absorbed people fleeing it. It has kept growing since, with the port expanded to handle container traffic for the wider region, while the wealth from the fields offshore has been slow to reach most of its residents.

This is Vili country, and the coastal identity is distinct from that of the capital. Kituba and Vili are heard alongside French, and the Loango past is a living reference: the Ma Loango, the traditional ruler, remains a figure of respect, and the old royal seat at Diosso, with the mausoleum of the Loango kings, keeps that history in view; Vili masks and nkisi power figures are held in museums far beyond the Congo.

The city is also the most cosmopolitan in the country. Decades of oil work have brought French, Lebanese, West African and more recently Chinese communities, and their restaurants, shops and places of worship sit among Congolese ones. Migrants from the Niari valley, the Pool and the north have made it a Congolese melting pot, and Lingala rumba is as common in the bars as coastal styles.

Religion is prominent, with Catholic and Protestant churches alongside revivalist congregations that fill Sunday mornings with singing. Football is followed closely and played on every patch of sand. Weekends belong to the beach: families and groups of friends take over the grills and bars along the shore from midday, and the sunset over the Atlantic is the city's shared ritual. Greetings are unhurried, and elders are addressed with care.

About 1.42 million people lived in Pointe-Noire in 2023, making it the country's second city and, by most measures, its economic capital. Oil dominates: the offshore fields, the service companies and the terminal provide the salaries that set prices in the city, while the container port handles much of the country's trade and a share of its neighbours'. Fishing, from industrial boats and from pirogues on the beach, employs many more, and the great majority of people work in informal trade and transport.

The centre of banks and oil offices sits close to dense districts such as Mvou-Mvou and Tié-Tié and to the spreading outer quarters of Loandjili to the north and Ngoyo to the south-east, where most of the growth is happening. Power cuts, water shortages and flooding on unpaved streets in the rainy season are routine, and rents in the centre are high because of the expatriate market.

Days start early, with markets full by seven and shared taxis crowding the avenues before the heat sets in. Coastal erosion has become a serious local issue, eating into parts of the shore and the road along it. Evenings are for the grills, the bars and football on television.

The Atlantic is on the plate here in a way it is not in Brazzaville. Capitaine, sardines, mackerel and prawns are grilled over charcoal or fried, sold at beach grills and market stalls, and much of the catch is smoked or salted for sale inland. Fish cooked as maboké, seasoned and steamed in a parcel of banana or cassava leaves, is a coastal favourite as much as a river one.

The staples are the country's: cassava as fufu or as chikwangue, the dense loaf steamed in leaves, and saka-saka, cassava leaves pounded and simmered for hours with palm oil, onion and smoked fish. Plantain is fried or grilled beside them, and poulet moambé, chicken in a sauce of palm-fruit pulp, is the dish most often called national. Grilled goat, ntaba, is the standard with a beer in the evening.

Safou, the purple fruit roasted or boiled with salt, comes into the markets in season, and mikaté, small fried dough balls, are a roadside breakfast. Palm wine arrives from the villages of the Kouilou, bottled lager is drunk everywhere, and ginger juice and bissap made from hibiscus flowers are the everyday soft drinks. The city's Lebanese and French restaurants add a layer that reflects the oil industry's long presence.