Saint-Louis (Senegal)
| Saint-Louis | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates | 16 ° 1 ′ N , 16 ° 30 ′ W | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Senegal | ||
| Saint-Louis | |||
| Department | Saint-Louis | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | SN-SL | ||
| height | 11 m | ||
| Residents | 209,752 (2013) | ||
| Website | www.saintlouisdusenegal.com (French) | ||
.JPG) Ile de Saint-Louis
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Saint-Louis [ sɛ̃ˈlwi ] ( Wolof : Ndar ) is a city on the northwestern coast of Senegal at the mouth of the Senegal River . It is the capital of the Senegalese region of the same name and has over 200,000 inhabitants.
The city borders on Mauritania and is considered the cultural center of Senegal, the population lives mainly from fishing and agriculture .
location
Due to its location - the heart of the city is an elongated island separated from the mainland - Saint Louis is considered the Venice of Africa . The island is connected to the mainland via the 515 meter long Pont Faidherbe . The Île de Saint-Louis has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000 .
The Place de Faidherbe , around which the Rognard barracks and the arcade-lined “Gouvernance” are grouped, divides the city into a north and a south part. The Europeans first settled in the south, there is also the cathedral, which was consecrated in 1828 as the first church in West Africa. Another bridge leads to a densely populated district, which is located on the 25 km long and only 100 meters wide headland Langue de Barbarie . In the historical city center on the island you can not see any poverty.
The daily struggle for survival takes place in the Guet N'Dar district , characterized by corrugated iron huts. There is a Moorish cemetery and the fish market. North of the Langue de Barbarie are bird sanctuaries such as the 16,000 hectare Djoudj National Park with thousands of breeding grounds for cormorants and flamingos - 360 species of migratory birds can be observed from October to May.
history
The city was founded in 1659 as the first French settlement in Africa. In the 19th century it was inhabited by French, Métis and Muslim traders. The Muslim families filed a petition in 1843 calling for the creation of an Islamic court. The request was met in 1857 when Louis Faidherbe issued a decree creating such a court.
Among the Saint-Louis Muslim merchant families who achieved considerable wealth between 1850 and 1880, the Seck family stood out. Dudu Seck (1826-1880), better known under the name Bu El Mogdad, who had received an Islamic education in a school in Trarza , entered French service in the early 1850s. He helped the French build relationships with the Moorish rulers of the region and enabled them to become a "puissance musulmane", i.e. H. a power that was also accepted by the local Muslims. In 1860 he made a pilgrimage to Mecca with French support to counter the propaganda of vonUmar Tall . El Mogdad's son Dudu (1867-1943) rendered similar services to the French and in 1902 brought the marabout Sidiyya Baba to Saint-Louis for the first time , who helped shape the French colonial order in Mauritania.
As can be seen from the descriptions of the officer and Islamic scholar Alfred Le Châteliers (1855–1929), Saint-Louis was strongly influenced by Islam as early as 1888/89. The city remained the capital of French West Africa until 1902 , when it was replaced by Dakar in this role . With the École normal William Ponty , one of the most important schools in French West Africa was located in Saint-Louis from 1903 to 1912. The still existing Lycée Cheikh Omar Foutiyou Tall in the city goes back to a school founded in 1884. In 1930 Jean Mermoz , a French postal operator, took off from the hydro base not far from the fish market on the first flight from Africa to South America.
Saint-Louis is the seat of the diocese of Saint-Louis du Sénégal, created in 1966 .
Events
Every year in May an international jazz festival takes place in the city .
Personalities
- Battling Siki (1897–1925), French-Senegalese boxer and first boxing world champion from Africa
- Amadou Cissé Dia (1915–2002), Minister and President of the National Assembly for many years
- Jacques Diouf (1938–2019) agricultural scientist and diplomat
- Amadou Sow (1951–2015) painter and graphic artist
- Fatou N'Diaye (* 1980), internationally acclaimed actress
- Pape Samba Ba (* 1982), football player
- Papa Waigo N'Diaye (* 1984), football player
- Abdoulaye Ba (* 1991), football player
- Famara Diedhiou (* 1992), football player
- Ismaïla Sarr (* 1998), football player
Town twinning
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Lille , France, since 1978 -
Fez , Morocco, since 1979 -
Liège , Belgium, since 1980 -
Bologna , Italy, since 1991 -
Saint Louis , USA, since 1994
literature
- David Robinson: Paths of accommodation: Muslim societies and French colonial authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880–1920 . Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 2000. pp. 79-85, 97-143.
Others
Saint-Louis was the target of the French frigate Méduse , which was shipwrecked in 1816 as a result of navigation errors on the Arguin sandbank far off the Mauritanian coast. In the poorly carried out evacuation, well over 100 of the passengers and crew members left on a raft died, which caused a sensation throughout Europe and, among others, inspired Théodore Géricault to paint his painting The Raft of Medusa .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Center: Island of Saint-Louis. Accessed August 21, 2017 .
- ↑ See Robinson: Paths of accommodation . 2000, p. 123.
- ↑ See Robinson: Paths of accommodation . 2000, p. 79.
- ↑ See Robinson: Paths of accommodation . 2000, p. 136.
- ↑ See Robinson: Paths of accommodation . 2000, pp. 81-83.
- ↑ a b See Robinson: Paths of accommodation . 2000, p. 121.
- ↑ See Robinson: Paths of accommodation . 2000, p. 83.
- ^ William Ponty School Collection of Papers. Nomination form - International Memory of the World Register. (PDF) Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire Cheikh Anta Diop, 2014, accessed on December 26, 2017 .
- ↑ Presentation générale du lycée Cheikh Omar Foutiyou Tall de Saint-Louis. Groupe pour l'Étude et l'Enseignement de la Population (GEEP), accessed on January 2, 2018 (French).