Africa

Cameroon

Situated in West Africa, Cameroon is shaped like an elongated triangle. It borders with Chad in the north and northeast, Central African Republic in the east, Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in the south, the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) in the Southwest, and to the west and northwest lies Nigeria.

There are four geographical regions. The southern region extends from the 226 mile coastline eastward to the Middle Congo Basin between the southern frontier and the Sanaga River. It consists of coastal plains of an average width of 27 miles and a densely forested plateau at an average elevation of 960 feet...More Information on Cameroon

Full country name: Republic of Cameroon
Area: 475,440 km²
Size: 183,569 square miles or slightly larger than California
Population: 15,421,937
Capital City: Yaounde (pop: 712,089) (1987)
Life Expectancy: 55 years
HIV/AIDS Rate of Infection: 7.73% (1999)
Infant Mortality Rate: 70.87 deaths/1,000 live births
Fertility Rate: 4.88 children born/woman
Ethnic Groups: Forest tribes 31%, Equatorial Bantu 19%, Kirdi 11%, Fulani 10%, Bantu 8%, Eastern Nigritic 7%, Other African 13%
Language: English/French (official), major African language groups
Religion:Indigenous beliefs 40%, Christian 40%, Muslim 20%
Literacy Rate:63.4%
Government: Unitary republic; multiparty presidential regime (opposition parties legalized in 1990) note: preponderance of power remains with the president
Head of State: President Paul Biya
Head of Government:President Paul Biya

Also Read: A Short Background of Cameroon

History of Cameroon

Little is known about Cameroon before 1472 when the Portuguese arrived shouting ‘Camarões, camarões!’ in amazement at the many giant shrimp - hence the country’s name. For the next 400 years, southern Cameroon’s history, like that of the rest of West Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, revolved around the slave trade. Northern Cameroon, by contrast, was a battleground for various empires, notably the Kanem-Bornu in Chad. When the Germans arrived in the late 19th century, ‘feudal’ northern Cameroon was under the control of the Fulani empire in Sokoto (Nigeria)...More on Cameroon's History.

Overview of Cameroon's Economy

GDP: $31.5 billion (1999 est.)
GDP per capita: $2,000 (1999 est.)
GDP Growth Rate: 5.2% (1999 est.)
Unemployment: 30% (1998 est
Inflation: 2.1% (1999 est.)
Exports: $2 billion (f.o.b., 1999
Major Exports: Crude oil and petroleum products, lumber, cocoa beans, aluminum, coffee, cotton
Economic Aid Recipient: $606.1 million (1995)
External Debt: $11.5 billion (1999 est.)
Currency: Communauté Financière Africaine franc
Climate: Tropical to semiarid
Irrigated Land: 93 sq miles (1993 est.)
Arable land: 13%
Permanent crops: 2%
Permanent Pastures: 4%
Forests and woodland: 78%
other: 3% (1993 est.)
Natural Resources: Petroleum, bauxite, iron ore, timber, hydropower
Natural Hazards: Recent volcanic activity with release of poisonous gases
Eco-alerts: Aside from deforestation, Cameroon is plagued by overgrazing, land degradation, animal poaching and overfishing.

Also Read: A short note on Economy of Cameroon

Climate, Vegetation and Fauna

Crossing Cameroon you come across great varieties of vegetation, from savannah around the shores of Lake Chad, to equatorial forests in the south-east of the country. It is one of the most geographically diverse countries in Africa, comprising three major zones: the northern savannah...more


Envoirnment: Physical Description: Cameroon’s landscape has great variety...more.
Culture: Cameroon’s split Anglo-French personality is further complicated by its bewildering array...more.
Climate: On the coast, the average annual rainfall is 152.5 inches...more
Geography: Cameroon is bordered by Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Gabon...more.


Facts for the Traveler

Visas are required by all except nationals of Germany and are NOT available at any land borders, although you can obtain them relatively easily in all the neighbouring countries but will often require you to show you have an onward ticket. You may have to provide evidence that you have sufficient funds to support your length of stay in the country.Visa extensions can be obtained in any of the regional capitals with any great problems or cost.
Official Currency: 1 CFACentral African Franc=100 centimes
Travellers cheques are best taken in Sterling and US Dollar cheques. Most of the major hotels and some restaurants accept credit cards.

Also Read: Money & Costs | Transport and getting around | Public holidays of Cameroon | Cameroon Shopping | Travel Tips

When to Go

The best time to visit Cameroon is during the cooler, drier months of November to February. The caveat is the harmattan - the winds that blow sand south from the Sahara and turn skies sandy grey from December to February. On bad days, visibility can be reduced to 1km or even less, delaying or cancelling flights and spoiling views. As bad as this sounds, the May to November rainy season turns Cameroon into a sea of mud and makes travel even more difficult than the harmattan....more

Also Read: Getting Around in Cameroon | Getting There & Away

What to See in Cameroon

Other Tourist Attractions in Cameroon

more...

National Parks Of Cameroon

more...

Events:

After New Year’s Day, the first major event of the year is the Mt Cameroon Race, held in late January. This 27km (17mi) race up and down the 3000m (10,000ft) mountain is Africa’s toughest. The Muslim Feast of Ramadan, which changes dates from year to year, signals the end of a month of daily fasts and is celebrated all over Cameroon, most notably in Foumban, where horse races, processions and dances are part of the festivities. Muslims in northern and western Cameroon also celebrate Tabaski in February or March, when celebrations include a parade of marabouts (wise men and fortune-tellers). The country’s major non-religious holiday is the Cameroon National Festival, held on 20 May. The best place to witness it is Maroua. Horses race through the streets of Kumbo, a town in western Cameroon, during Nso Cultural Week, held in mid-November.

What to do in Cameroon::

The best prospects for hiking in Cameroon are the northern area between the towns of Rumsiki and Mora and the eastern area around Bamenda. Mt Cameroon offers excellent rock climbing, an hour’s drive west of Douala. There’s also good climbing in Mindif, a park south of the northern town of Maroua, where few have succeeded in mastering a huge rock known as ‘le Dent de Mindif’. There’s good sunbathing and swimming at the beaches near the southern coastal town Kribi...more

The earliest inhabitants of the area were Khoisan hunter-gatherers. They were largely replaced by Bantu tribes during a series of migrations. The southern part of the country was named Matabeleland after the Ndebele tribe who occupied the area in the early 1800’s under a loose confederation of Ndebele-speaking tribes headed by the Khumalo tribe under [...]
Countries in Africa Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Cote d’Ivoire Democratic Republic of the Congo Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Republic of the Congo Rwanda Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe
Religion in Africa Africans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs, with Christianity and Islam being the most widespread. Approximately 40% of all Africans are Christians and another 40% Muslims. Roughly 20% of Africans primarily follow indigenous African religions. A small number of Africans also have beliefs from the Judaic tradition, such as the Beta Israel [...]
Culture of Africa Africa has a number of overlapping cultures. The most conventional distinction is that between sub-Saharan Africa and the northern countries from Egypt to Morocco, who largely associate themselves with Arabic culture. In this comparison, the nations to the south of the Sahara are considered to consist of many cultural areas, in particular [...]
Demographics of Africa Africans may be grouped according to whether they live north or south of the Sahara Desert; these groups are called North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans, respectively. Afro-Asiatic speaking peoples predominate in North Africa, while Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by a number of disparate populations grouped according to their diverse languages–Niger-Congo predominantly in West [...]
Economy of Africa Africa is the world’s poorest inhabited continent: the United Nations’ Human Development Report 2003 (of 175 countries) found that positions 151 (Gambia) to 175 (Sierra Leone) were taken up entirely by African nations. It has had (and in some ways is still having) a shaky and uncertain transition from colonialism, with increases in corruption [...]
Politics in Africa Colonial Africa Colonialism had a destabilizing effect on what had been a number of ethnic groups that is still being felt in African politics. Prior to European influence, national borders were not much of a concern, with Africans generally following the practice of other areas of the world, such as the Arabian peninsula, where [...]
History of Africa Africa is home to the oldest inhabited territory on earth, with the human race originating from this continent. During the mid 20th century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as 7 million years ago. The famous Leakey family, with ties to both Britain and Africa, discovered fossil [...]
Geography of Africa Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the Earth’s surface. It includes within its remarkably regular outline an area, of c. 30,360,288 km² (11,722,173 mi²), including the islands. Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the [...]
Etymology of Africa The name Africa came into Western use through the Romans, who used the name Africa terra - “land of the Afri” (plural, or “Afer” singular) - for the northern part of the continent, as the province of Africa with its capital Carthage, corresponding to modern-day Tunisia. The Afri were a tribe - possibly Berber [...]

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Africa Travel Guide