Douala

Sister cities

• Sfax
• Rome
• Newark
• Durban
• Windhoek
• Ouagadougou
• Dakar
• Philadelphia
• Trieste
• Akhisar
• Agadir
• Taiyuan

History

The first Europeans to visit the area were the Portuguese in about 1472. At the time, the estuary of Wouri River was known as the Rio dos Camarões (Shrimp River). By 1650, it had become the site of a town formed by immigrants, said to have arrived from Congo, who spoke the Duala language. During the 18th century it was the center of the transatlantic slave trade. In 1826 Douala appeared to be made of four different villages located in four specific locations: the village of Deido (Dido), of Akwa, of Njo and Hickory-town (today Bonaberi, located on the other side of Wouri River). Between 1884 and 1895 the city was a German protectorate. The colonial politics focused on commerce and some exploration of the unoccupied territories. In 1885, Alfred Saker organized the first mission of the British Baptist Church. In the same year the city known as Kamerun was renamed Douala and became the capital of the territory until 1902, when the capital was moved to Buéa. In 1907 the Ministry of Colonies was established and Douala had 23,000 citizens. After World War I in 1919, the German colonial territories became French and British protectorates. France received a mandate to administer Douala. A treaty was signed with the local chiefs. From 1940 to 1946, it was the capital of Cameroon. In 1955 the city had over 100,000 inhabitants. With the arrival of the Portuguese in the 15th century, the area was known as Rio dos Camarões. Before coming under German rule in 1884, the town was also known as Cameroons Town; thereafter it became Kamerunstadt ("Cameroon City"), the capital of German Kamerun. It was renamed Douala in 1907 after the name of the natives known as Dua ala Ijaws (Njos), and became part of French Cameroon in 1919. Many of the Ijaw (Njo) natives migrated to the Niger…

Geography

Douala is the largest city in Cameroon. It is on the Atlantic Ocean coast approximately 130 miles (210 km) west of Yaoundé. The city is located on the banks of the Wouri River, the two sides linked by Bonaberi Bridge. Douala features a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen climate classification Am), with relatively consistent temperatures throughout the course of the year, though the city experiences somewhat cooler temperatures in July and August. Douala typically features warm and humid conditions with an average annual temperature of and an average humidity of 83%. Douala sees plentiful rainfall during the course of the year, experiencing on average roughly of precipitation per year. |source 2 = Deutscher Wetterdienst (humidity, 1957-1990), Weather.Directory |date=November 2011, }} & Direction de la Météorologie Nationale du Cameroun / Historical Archives (Extremes 1885–present)

Most-observed species

• Pearl Stingray

  Fontitrygon margaritella (Compagno & Roberts, 1984) · Elasmobranchii
  232
• sebae silverfish

  Monodactylus sebae (Cuvier, 1829) · Animalia
  126
• Bull shark

  Carcharhinus leucas (Müller & Henle, 1839) · Elasmobranchii
  114
• Blackchin guitarfish

  Glaucostegus cemiculus (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1817) · Elasmobranchii
  100
• African Sicklefish

  Drepane africana Osório, 1892 · Animalia
  63
• Seret's Butterfly Ray

  Gymnura sereti Yokota & Carvalho, 2017 · Elasmobranchii
  63
• Tripletail, Atlantic tripletail

  Lobotes surinamensis (Bloch, 1790) · Animalia
  59
• Black Kite

  Milvus migrans (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  54