Dakar & the Petite Côte

Before the French, the Cap-Vert peninsula belonged to the Lebou, a fishing people who ran their own community of villages, while inland the Wolof kingdoms of Cayor and Baol held the plains that are now Thiès and Diourbel, and Serer villages lined the Petite Côte. The Portuguese reached the coast in the 15th century, and Gorée Island passed between the Dutch, English and French as a trading post for slaves, gum and gold. The island's House of Slaves has become an international place of remembrance, though historians debate how many captives passed through the island itself.

The French founded Dakar on the mainland in 1857, and it grew rapidly once the railway to Saint-Louis opened in 1885. In 1902 it became the capital of French West Africa, and Dakar, Gorée and Rufisque were among the four communes whose residents held French citizenship. Thiès grew as the junction of the lines to Saint-Louis and to the Niger, and its railway workers joined the great 1947–48 strike that Ousmane Sembène later turned into a novel.

Inland, a different story unfolded. Cheikh Amadou Bamba, founder of the Mouride brotherhood, was exiled by the French and later held under surveillance in Diourbel; his followers built Touba, the town he had founded in 1887, into a holy city after his death in 1927. Since independence Dakar has remained the capital, and the region has absorbed most of Senegal's growth, from Pikine's sprawling suburbs to the new town at Diamniadio.

Dakar is the most cosmopolitan city in French-speaking West Africa, and Wolof is its everyday language, mixed freely with French in the urban slang heard on the street and in mbalax songs. The Lebou remain a distinct community in Yoff, Ngor and Ouakam, with their own dignitaries and the ndëpp, a healing ceremony of drumming and dance. The Layène brotherhood, founded by Seydina Limamou Laye, has its mausoleums at Yoff and Cambérène.

Religion shapes the calendar inland. Touba belongs to the Mourides and has a special status under which alcohol and tobacco are banned in the city; the Grand Magal, commemorating Bamba's exile, brings pilgrims from across Senegal and the diaspora. Tivaouane, in Thiès region, is a seat of the Tijaniyya brotherhood and holds a large Gamou for the Prophet's birthday.

Dakar is also a capital of the arts: the Dak'Art biennale, the Village des Arts studios, a lively fashion scene and live music in the clubs where mbalax was born. Laamb wrestling draws crowds to the national arena in Pikine, and on the Petite Côte Serer traditions persist around Joal and Fadiouth, where Christians and Muslims share a cemetery.

The Dakar region holds roughly 4 million people on a small peninsula, about a quarter of Senegal's population. The Plateau is the business and government district; Médina, Grand Dakar, Pikine and Guédiawaye are dense residential areas; the Almadies and Ngor are the wealthier west. Thiès, Mbour, Rufisque and Touba are among the country's largest cities, and Touba has grown into one of the biggest of all.

The economy is government, the port, banking, telecoms, construction, the fish trade and a huge informal sector of hawkers, tailors and workshops. Mbour and Kayar are major fishing ports, where pirogues land their catch on the beach each afternoon. Thiès has industry and a large military presence; Touba lives on religious commerce and trade. Tourism centres on Saly and the coast around it.

Days start early to beat the traffic, with a breakfast of bread and coffee and the long midday meal shared from a communal bowl. Friday prayers slow the city at lunchtime. Current issues include congestion, flooding in the suburbs during the rains, the cost of housing, coastal erosion and the young people leaving by pirogue for the Canary Islands.

The coast lives on fish. Thiof, a prized white grouper, is grilled whole or cooked into ceebu jën, the national dish of fish, vegetables and broken rice in tomato sauce, and Dakar's beachside restaurants at Ngor and Yoff serve grilled fish and seafood straight from the pirogues. Yassa, chicken or fish in lemon and onions, and mafé, a peanut stew, are everyday dishes in homes and cheap gargotes.

Street food fills the gaps: fataya, fried pastries filled with fish or meat; accara, black-eyed-pea fritters with an onion sauce; ndambé, a bean stew stuffed into a baguette for breakfast; and dibi, grilled mutton sold by weight with mustard and onions. For something sweet there is thiakry, millet couscous with sweetened curdled milk, and lakh, millet porridge with curd.

Drinks are bissap hibiscus juice, bouye baobab juice and ginger juice, and the strong sweet ataya tea brewed in three rounds. Café Touba, coffee roasted with djar (grains of selim), is associated with the Mourides and sold by street vendors across the region.

Dakar packs its sights onto the Cap-Vert peninsula. Gorée Island, a short ferry ride from the port, has the House of Slaves, colonial houses and a castle-topped hill, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On the mainland stand the African Renaissance Monument on one of the Mamelles hills, the Museum of Black Civilisations, the IFAN Théodore Monod museum of African art, the Kermel and Soumbédioune markets, the Pointe des Almadies and the beaches and island of Ngor. The Îles de la Madeleine national park lies just offshore.

North-east of the city, the Lac Rose — also called Lake Retba — is a shallow salt lake where collectors wade out to gather salt and where the water can take a pink tint in the dry season; it was the traditional finish of the Paris–Dakar rally.

South of Dakar, the Petite Côte runs past the clifftop villages of Toubab Dialaw and Popenguine, the lagoon at Somone and the Bandia wildlife reserve, to Saly, the country's main beach resort, and the fishing town of Mbour. Further south, Joal was the birthplace of Léopold Sédar Senghor, and a wooden footbridge leads to Fadiouth, an island built on shells.

Inland, Thiès has its tapestry workshops and railway heritage, and Tivaouane its Tijani mosques. Touba, the holy city of the Mourides, is dominated by the Great Mosque over Bamba's tomb, with its tall central minaret; visitors are welcome with modest dress.