Thiès

Sister cities

• Caen
• Solingen
• Cergy
• Sousse

History

Before colonization, the Thiès Plateau was a wooded frontier between the kingdoms of Cayor and Baol inhabited by the Serer-Noon, an ethnic sub-group of the Serer people. The Serer-Noon still inhabit the Thiès-Nones neighborhood of the south-west city today. They speak the Noon language, one of the Cangin languages. The village of Dianxene, belonging to the kingdom of Cayor, was founded on the strategically important plateau in the 17th century. In 1860, it had only 75 inhabitants. The French founded a military post there in 1864, becoming an important force in the city's development ever since. The Spiritans founded a mission there in the late 19th century to help protect the local population from raids out of Mauretania seeking to capture slaves. In 1885, the Dakar–Saint-Louis railway, the first rail line in French West Africa, opened with a stop in Thiès. The French colonial administration created the commune of Thiès in 1904. As an important railway junction, the city was an important site for labour activities, particularly in 1938 when a railway strike was violently repressed by France, and during the general strikes of 1945-1946 and 1947-1948. Léopold Sédar Senghor, later the first president of independent Senegal, was elected mayor of Thiès in November 1956.