Dakar (Senegal): A Modern Capital
Dakar (Senegal): A Modern Capital
- Liora BigonLiora BigonSchool of Architecture, Ariel University
Summary
The capital city of Senegal, Dakar—whose metropolitan area comprises a population of 3,835,000 (about 23 percent of the country’s population as of 2021)—is a thriving cosmopolitan city and the largest city in Senegal. The beginning of this coastal settlement, according to Lebou oral traditions, dates to the 15th century. The Lebou are the Indigenous people who originally inhabited the area and have maintained a meaningful presence on Cap-Vert Peninsula, over which the modern city of Dakar extends. Established as the main deepwater port in West Africa and as a capital city on the territorial and regional levels during the French colonial regime, early-21st-century Dakar has experienced steady growth as a prominent point for in-country, regional, and transnational migration. Generating about half of the nation’s gross domestic product, the metropolis is characterized by great ethnolinguistic diversity; a moderate, democratized sociopolitical tradition of governance; a predominance of several Sufi tariqas (religious orders); and considerable artistic creativity. Dakar is one of the earliest sites in sub-Saharan tropical Africa of European settlement, which was initiated by the Portuguese in the mid-15th century. Metropolitan Dakar—positioned against the background of the transatlantic slave trade, subsequent French imperialism, and the crystallization of Islam since the beginning of the European settlement —has a unique historical, cultural, and physical heritage. The city has also won remarkable scholarly attention in multidisciplinary fields on the part of both its local and overseas scholars. However, its main challenges throughout the early 21st century have continued to be successful decentralization, the provision of adequate infrastructure, and a simplification of its complex systems of urban governance. It has also faced the challenges of the proliferation of uncontrolled peri-urban and extraformal growth, a housing crisis, and poverty.
Keywords
Subjects
- Cultural History
- Political History
- West Africa