Senegal

Senegal is a country in West Africa.

It is next to the big Atlantic Ocean. It has long, sandy beaches. The capital city is Dakar. Dakar is at the very western edge of Africa.

Senegal is at the western tip of Africa. The Cape Verde Peninsula, where the capital Dakar stands, is the westernmost point of the whole continent. Because ships and planes stop there on many routes, Senegal is called the Gateway to Africa.

Most of the country is low and flat. Dry grassland in the north meets the ocean in the west and thicker forest in the south. Senegal's national symbols are the baobab tree and the lion. About 19 million people lived there in 2025.

Senegal lies at an ecological boundary where semiarid grassland, oceanfront and tropical rainforest converge, and Britannica notes that the baobab and the lion, its national symbols, were chosen from this natural heritage. It is a flat country in the Senegal-Mauritanian Basin; land above about 100 m is found only on the Cape Verde Peninsula and in the southeast.

The Cape Verde Peninsula is the westernmost point of mainland Africa, and Dakar, sheltered by it, is one of Africa's most important harbors; with many air and sea routes, Senegal is called the Gateway to Africa. The World Bank put the population at 18,931,966 in 2025. More than two-fifths of people are under 15, and urban settlement is approaching half the population.

Dakar is a big, busy city by the sea.

Saint-Louis is an old town on an island in a river. Gorée is a small island near Dakar. Old stone circles stand in the fields.

Dakar is Senegal's capital and biggest city, and about one in five people in Senegal live in and around it. Its port is one of the most important in Africa.

Saint-Louis, founded in 1659, stands on a narrow island near the mouth of the Senegal River. It was the capital of Senegal until 1957. Gorée, a small island off Dakar, was a center of the Atlantic slave trade, when enslaved Africans were shipped across the ocean; today it is a place of remembrance. In the center of the country, groups of ancient stone circles stand along the Gambia River.

Dakar, founded in 1857 and capital of French West Africa from 1902, is now a metropolis where about one-fifth of Senegal's people live. Saint-Louis (1659) and Dakar are the country's oldest towns. UNESCO inscribed the Island of Saint-Louis in 2000: a colonial town with a regular street plan and quays, wedged between two arms of the Senegal River's mouth, capital of the colony until 1902 and of Senegal and Mauritania until 1957.

The Island of Gorée, 28 hectares and 3.5 km off Dakar, was inscribed in 1978. From the 15th to the 19th century, Portuguese, Dutch, English and French traders used it in the Atlantic slave trade; UNESCO describes it as a reminder of human exploitation and a sanctuary for reconciliation. The Stone Circles of Senegambia (2006), shared with The Gambia, include more than 1,000 monuments along about 350 km of the Gambia River; Sine Ngayène, the largest group, has 52 circles of carved laterite stones.

The Senegal River flows along the north.

In the south, there is lots of rain and thick green forest. In the north, it is dry and grassy. A dry wind blows in winter.

Four big rivers cross Senegal: the Senegal, the Saloum, the Gambia and the Casamance. The Senegal River is so flat near the sea that, when the water is low, salty seawater flows about 200 kilometers upstream.

The north is dry, with thorn bushes, acacias and baobabs. The far south, in Casamance, gets more than 1,270 millimeters of rain a year and has dense forest, oil palms, mangroves and rice fields. Rain arrives in June with moist winds from the ocean, and in winter a dry wind called the harmattan blows from the interior.

Senegal is drained by the Sénégal, Saloum, Gambia and Casamance rivers, all following a dry season and a rainy season. The Sénégal rises in Guinea's Fouta Djallon; its gradient below Dagana is so gentle that at low water seawater penetrates about 200 km upstream. South of the Saloum the coast is a ria coast of drowned valleys fringed with mangroves.

Rainfall depends on the yearly migration of the intertropical convergence zone, which brings moist westerly winds from June and retreats from September; the dry northeast trade winds are called the harmattan in winter and spring. Britannica distinguishes three zones: the cool coastal strip from Saint-Louis to Dakar (about 500 mm of rain), the Sahelian north (about 360 mm between July and October, with May highs above 40 °C) and the Sudanic south (740–990 mm around Kaolack and Tambacounda, more than 1,270 mm in Casamance). Vegetation runs from shrub and tree steppe with baobabs and gum arabic acacias in the north to dense forest and mangrove swamp in the southwest.

Warthogs trot through the marshes.

Chimpanzees and lions live in a big park. Hippos swim in the rivers. Pelicans and flamingos crowd the wetlands.

In the marshes near the Senegal River, warthogs are common. Hippopotamuses, crocodiles and turtles live in the rivers, and noisy groups of monkeys live in the valleys of the Gambia and Casamance rivers.

Niokolo-Koba National Park, in the southeast, is home to chimpanzees, lions, leopards and the Derby eland, the largest of all antelopes. In the north, the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary is a wetland where about 1.5 million birds gather, including white pelicans, flamingos, spoonbills and herons.

Large mammals have disappeared from western Senegal as settlement spread. Britannica notes herds of warthogs in the marshes of the False Delta, monkeys in the upper Gambia and Casamance valleys, and crocodiles, hippopotamuses and turtles in the rivers; the coastal waters are rich in fish and crustaceans.

Niokolo-Koba National Park (913,000 ha, UNESCO 1981), watered by the Gambia and its tributaries, has gallery forest, savanna floodplains and rocky hills; UNESCO lists the Derby eland, chimpanzees, lions and leopards among its animals. The park was on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger from 2007 until July 2024, when it was taken off the list. Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary (16,000 ha, also 1981) in the Senegal River delta holds about 1.5 million birds, among them the white pelican, purple heron, African spoonbill, great egret and pink flamingo. UNESCO notes that the Diama dam downstream disturbed its water balance, letting invasive plants spread.

About 19 million people live in Senegal.

Many people speak Wolof. French is used in schools and offices. A favorite meal is fish cooked with rice and vegetables.

About half of the people in Senegal are Wolof, and Wolof is the language heard most. Other groups include the Tukulor, Fulani, Serer, Diola, Malinke, Soninke and Basari. Some 39 languages are spoken, and French is the official language.

A famous dish called ceebu jën began in the fishing families of Saint-Louis. It is made with fish, broken rice and vegetables such as carrots, cabbage, cassava and okra, and in most families it is eaten with the hands. Traditional wrestling is extremely popular, the national soccer team is called the Teranga Lions, and griots tell stories with music on a stringed kora.

The Wolof make up about half the population and Wolof is the most widely used language; the Tukulor, Fulani, Serer, Diola, Malinke, Soninke, Lebu and Basari are among the other groups. Britannica counts some 39 languages, with French official; the African ones belong to the Atlantic family (Wolof, Serer, Fula, Diola) in the west and the Mande family (Bambara, Malinke, Soninke) in the east. Islam, practiced through brotherhoods such as the Tijani and the Mourides, is the religion of the vast majority.

About two-thirds of working people are in agriculture, growing peanuts, millet, sorghum, rice, corn and cassava, and fish now lead all exports by value. UNESCO added ceebu jën, a dish of fish, broken rice, dried fish, shellfish and seasonal vegetables first made by fishing communities on Saint-Louis, to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2021. Griots, hereditary singers and historians, accompany themselves on the kora, and Youssou N'Dour blended mbalax drumming with pop and rock.