Where is Waterloo, Sierra Leone located?

Waterloo is located in Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone, at approximate coordinates 8.3390°, -13.0696°.

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Waterloo

Sierra Leonecity

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Coordinates8.34°, -13.07°

Demographic figures from Statistics Sierra Leone. Overview below cites Wikipedia and may reference a different year.

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City facts

Overview

Waterloo is a city in the Western Area of Sierra Leone and the capital of the Western Area Rural District, which is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. Waterloo is located about twenty miles east of Freetown. Waterloo is the second largest city in the Western Area region of Sierra Leone, after Freetown. The city had a population of 34,079 in the 2004 census, and 55,000 as per a 2015 estimate. Waterloo is part of the Freetown metropolitan area.

History & geography

History

Waterloo was founded in 1819 as a settlement for liberated Africans. Incorporated into the parish system under the tutelage of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), Waterloo was settled by soldiers from the second and fourth West India Regiment from Jamaica and Barbados. The town was named after the Anglo-Allied army victory over Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Waterloo in present-day Belgium. The ex-military men settled in "Soja Town" bordering King Street, an artery leading to King Yard which housed the police station, courthouse, and jailhouse. The settlers were later joined by several groups of Recaptives, whose integration into the village community was facilitated by Governor MacCarthy's insistence on education and religion via schools, personages and churches. Several Christian denominations, primarily of Anglican, Countess of Huntingdon, and Wesleyan persuasions established churches and schools throughout the fast-growing populace. Following the establishment of the Mixed Commissions in Freetown in 1819 (primarily to set recaptured slaves free), the number of Recaptives in Freetown grew. This growth resulted in a corresponding increase in the Recaptives population in Waterloo. Unlike the original settlers from Jamaica and Barbados, the Recaptives had made minimal sustained contact with Western languages and cultures. In efforts to restore some lifestyle stability in their new environment, the Recaptives settled along ethnic or tribal lines. Thus, the Yoruba settled in Aku Town, the Igbo in Ibo Town, the ex-military Recaptives in Soja Town, etc. The community which emerged established social welfare institutions and secret societies such as Osusu, Ojeh, Hunting, Geledeh, and Akanja as measures to perpetuate their culture, provide a framework for social…

Geography

The town of Waterloo is located some 20 miles from Freetown. With a population estimated at approximately 40,000, it is the second largest city in the Western Area and an important crossroad where roads connecting provincial capitals and the Sierra Leone peninsula to the nation's capital meet. The prosperity which reigned in Waterloo throughout the 19th and 20th centuries was shattered by the outbreak of the Sierra Leone Civil War in the 1990s, during which rebel soldiers pillaged and ravaged homes, schools, churches, offices, and government buildings, with many inhabitants fleeing the town.

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