Ziguinchor

Ziguinchor
Coordinates	12 ° 34 ′ 7 ″  N , 16 ° 16 ′ 31 ″  W Coordinates: 12 ° 34 ′ 7 ″  N , 16 ° 16 ′ 31 ″  W
Basic data
Country	Senegal
region	Ziguinchor
Department	Ziguinchor
height	12 m
surface	9 km²
Residents	205,294 (2013)
density	22,810.4  Ew. / km²
Website	www.villedeziguinchor.org (French)
politics
mayor	Abdoulaye Baldé (2016)
Street in Ziguinchor

Ziguinchor (zigɛ̃ʃɔʀ) is the largest city in the Ziguinchor region of the same name in Casamance , the southern part of Senegal , and has a population of over 200,000. It is the trading center of the Casamance and an important trading center and military base between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau .

Ziguinchor was visited by Pope John Paul II in 1992 and forms the Christian center of Senegal.

geography

Ziguinchor is located 60 kilometers from the sea on the south bank of the Casamance River , which is around 650 meters wide here. The riverside region is accompanied to the west and north to the Atlantic by mangrove swamps with numerous water branches and therefore offers a very species-rich nature. The population of these swamp and river landscapes is assigned to different ethnic groups , with over 30 languages ​​and varieties and each with its own cultural traditions. Multilingualism is very common in Ziguinchor and the surrounding area.

To the west of Ziguinchor is the holiday resort of Cap Skirring on the Atlantic coast . In the south, the border to Guinea-Bissau is 15 kilometers from the city center.

The next larger neighboring town is Bignona, 30 km to the north . Between these two cities, the language border runs from Wolof and Diola as a lingua franca . The Portuguese- based creole language Kriol , which is the most important lingua franca in large parts of neighboring Guinea-Bissau , is also widespread in Ziguinchor .

history

First mention and origin of the name

Ziguinchor is mentioned for the first time in 1594 in the Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde by Cape Verdean André Álvares de Almada. Here is the talk of the country's "Izig [u] chos", which at one point Bainunk ( port . Banhuns ) were, and elsewhere by the Bainunk of "Ezigichor". In the 19th century, the French Emmanuel Bertrand-Bocandé distinguished the Bainunk von Ziguinchor from other bainunk subgroups and assigned a number of villages to them, which today either belong directly to the city of Ziguinchor (Boucotte, Djibok) or are suburbs of Ziguinchor (Djibélor, Djifanghor). Accordingly, the Portuguese named their trading post simply after the local name of the area and its inhabitants.

Deviating from this etymology of the city name, which is documented by historical sources, there is also a folk etymology that is very common locally . Accordingly, the city name comes from the Upper Guinea Creole and is from the request Sinta bu cora! “Sit down and cry!” Derived. This derivation is important for Ziguinchor's self-image insofar as it is reminiscent of the history of the slave trade and colonization.

Portuguese trading post, French colony, Senegalese city

The Portuguese navigator Gonçalo Gamboa Ayala , the first captain ( port . Capitão-mor ) of Cacheu , founded in 1645 the trading post at Ziguinchor Casamance River ( port . Casamansa ). During the negotiations of the Congo Conference , Portugal and France exchanged the area around Ziguinchor for the area around Cacine in 1886 .

Under French colonial rule , Ziguinchor became the capital of the Basse Casamance in 1907 and, in 1944, of the entire Casamance within French West Africa . This initially remained that way even after Senegal gained independence in 1960. The Casamance region has been administratively divided again since 1984: Ziguinchor has been the capital of the region of the same name since then .

Ziguinchor is the seat of the Ziguinchor diocese created in 1955 .

population

The last censuses showed the following population figures for the city:

year	Residents
1976	69,646
1988	124.283
2002	153.269
2013	205.294

traffic

The national airline Air Sénégal connects Ziguinchor daily with Dakar-Blaise Diagne via its airport .

Three national roads connect Ziguinchor with the rest of the country. The N 6 runs south of the Casamance River to the east through the border area of Guinea-Bissau via Goudomp , Kolda and Vélingara to Tambacounda , from where trunk roads go in all directions. Perhaps the most important trunk road is the N 4 as the shortest north-south connection from the city to the heartland of Senegal. It initially leads on the 650 meter long pont Émile Badiane , built in the 1970s, from the town on the south bank of Casamance over the river to the north in the direction of Bignona and from there as a Transgambienne to the northeast through Gambia to Kaolack . During the transit through the Gambia a state and customs border has to be passed twice and for many years the traffic through the Gambia , which could only be crossed by ferry , was held up. Since January 2019, traffic has been able to roll on the Senegambia Bridge , which is subject to a toll . In Bignona the N 5 branches off from the N4 and leads to the Gambian capital Banjul . In the south, the N4 leads to the Mpack - São Domingos border crossing and to the neighboring country of Guinea-Bissau.

Not least of Casamane upstream to Sédhiou navigable downstream for seagoing vessels . Ziguinchor has a seaport 60 kilometers from the sea .

Port of Ziguinchor, in the background the pont Émile Badiane over the river

port

The Port de Ziguinchor is next to the port of the capital Dakar as the second largest seaport in Senegal in terms of traffic.

As early as the early 1950s, there was a pier with a few buildings in the immediate vicinity of the then still small town. This system - one could hardly speak of a harbor - was however a short time later u. a. Called by various German cargo ships. These included ships from the shipping company Gehrckens , Bastian , Flensburger Schiffspartenvereinigung, Nordische Reederei, Kiel and others. General cargo was unloaded with its own crockery, peanuts loaded in sacks, which the workers transported individually over planks and a loading ramp into the hatches. Before it was extended, the pier was so short that the ship had to tie up the front and stern lines to mangrove trees .

Years later, after the port and infrastructure were expanded, a ferry connection was established between Dakar and Ziguinchor. Le Joola has operated on this route since 1990 . In September 2002 she capsized in a storm on a crossing to Dakar, killing over 1,800 people. In March 2008, Le Joola was replaced by the Aline Sitoe Diatta .

Personalities

• Augustin Sagna (1920–2012), Bishop of Ziguinchor
• Ousmane Sembène (1923–2007), writer and filmmaker, “father figure” of sub-Saharan cinema
• Augustin Diamacoune Senghor (1928–2007), priest and politician, founder of the rebel movement MFDC
• Pierre Sagna CSSp (1932–2008), Roman Catholic Bishop of Saint-Louis du Sénégal
• Antoine Pascal Sane (* 1934), diplomat
• Maixent Coly (1949–2010), theologian and Roman Catholic Bishop of Ziguinchor
• Jules Bocandé (1958–2012), football player and coach
• Solo Cissokho (1963–2019), jazz and mbalax musician
• Aliou Cissé (* 1976), soccer player and coach of the national team
• Basile De Carvalho (* 1981), football player
• Stéphane Badji (* 1990), football player
• Joseph Lopy (born 1992), football player
• Amigo Alfred Junior Gomis (* 1993), goalkeeper of the Senegalese national soccer team

Climate table

Ziguinchor
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.     0   33 16     0   36 17th     0   36 18th     0   37 19th     4th   36 21st     100   34 23     296   32 23     409   31 23     319   32 23     102   33 23     5   34 20th     1   33 17th Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm Source: wetterkontor.de

Monthly average temperatures and rainfall for Ziguinchor Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Max. Temperature ( ° C ) 33.2 35.7 35.8 37.3 35.9 33.8 31.5 31.0 31.5 32.9 33.6 32.5 O 33.7 Min. Temperature (° C) 15.6 16.7 18.2 19.2 21.3 23.3 23.3 23.1 22.9 22.8 20.2 16.5 O 20.3 Precipitation ( mm ) 0 0 0 0 4th 100 296 409 319 102 5 1 Σ 1,236 Hours of sunshine ( h / d ) 8.1 8.9 9.4 9.4 9.2 8.0 5.9 5.5 6.5 7.8 8.7 8.3 O 8th Rainy days ( d ) 0 0 0 0 1 9 19th 21st 19th 8th 0 0 Σ 77 Water temperature (° C) 23 22nd 22nd 23 24 26th 27 28 27 27 26th 24 O 24.9 Humidity ( % ) 51 53 56 63 70 77 85 88 88 84 75 60 O 70.9 Source: wetterkontor.de

See also

• Stade Aline Sitoe Diatta
• List of cities in Senegal

Web links

Commons : Ziguinchor  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ziguinchor City Council website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ “Notre ambition por Ziguinchor”; Greetings from Mayor Baldé ( memento of February 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) on the city administration's website
2. ↑ Álvares de Almada, André: Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guiné do Cabo Verde . Edited by António Brásio. Editorial LIA M, Lisbon 1964 [1594], pp. 60f. 63.
3. ^ Bertrand-Bocandé, Emmanuel: Notes sur la Guinée Portugaise ou Sénégambie méridionale (première partie) . In: Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie 3 (11), 1849, p. 333.
4. ↑ Dieng, Dah and Francis Silakooul Menschba: Approche chrono-spatiale de la gouvernance territoriale de la Casamance: le découpage administratif, un enjeu de pouvoir ou de développement? In: Revue de geographie du laboratoire Leïdi (11), 2013.
5. ↑ Senegal: The most important places with statistics on their population
6. ↑ Eiffage Sénégal: du pont à Émile Badiane Ziguinchor Réhabilitation ( Memento of 12 February 2017 Internet Archive )
7. ↑ Agence Nationale de la Statistique et de la Demographie: Situation économique et sociale du Sénégal en 2009 ( Memento of July 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) , page 163 of the PDF file 8.7 MB, December 2010