Africa · Independence and the modern states
Cameroon
Republic · 1960–2024
Cameroon, at the hinge of West and Central Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, is often called "Africa in miniature" for its ecological and cultural diversity — beaches, rainforest, savanna, the volcanic Mount Cameroon (4,095 m), and over 250 languages. Its precolonial history includes the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad, Bantu migrations, the 19th-century Fulani Adamawa Emirate, and sophisticated chiefdoms such as the Bamum kingdom, whose Sultan Njoya invented the Bamum script.
- Type
- Republic
- Existed
- 1960–2024
- Shown on the map
- 1960–2024
- Peak area
- 468k km²
- Region
- Africa
Overview
Cameroon, at the hinge of West and Central Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, is often called "Africa in miniature" for its ecological and cultural diversity — beaches, rainforest, savanna, the volcanic Mount Cameroon (4,095 m), and over 250 languages. Its precolonial history includes the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad, Bantu migrations, the 19th-century Fulani Adamawa Emirate, and sophisticated chiefdoms such as the Bamum kingdom, whose Sultan Njoya invented the Bamum script. Portugal reached the coast in 1472 and named the Wouri River "Rio dos Camarões" (river of shrimps), giving the country its name. Germany annexed the territory as Kamerun in 1884, running brutal forced-labour plantation concessions until World War I, when the colony was split into French and British League of Nations mandates (later UN trust territories).
Later history and present status
France outlawed the pro-independence Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) in 1955, provoking a long guerrilla war whose leaders — Ruben Um Nyobè, Félix-Roland Moumié, Ernest Ouandie — were assassinated; the insurgency continued until 1971. French Cameroun became independent on 1 January 1960 under President Ahmadou Ahidjo, and on 1 October 1961 the British Southern Cameroons voted to join it, forming the Federal Republic of Cameroon (the northern British Cameroons joined Nigeria). Ahidjo created a one-party state in 1966, abolished the federation by referendum in 1972 (the United Republic of Cameroon), and pursued "planned liberalism" with oil and cash-crop revenues. He resigned in 1982 in favour of Paul Biya, who renamed the country the Republic of Cameroon in 1984 and, after surviving a coup attempt that year, entrenched an authoritarian system. Multipartyism returned formally in 1990, but Biya — now the world's longest-serving non-royal leader — has won every election amid fraud allegations, most recently in 2025. Cameroon faced a Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North from 2014 and, since 2017, a violent Anglophone separatist conflict ("Ambazonia") in the Northwest and Southwest regions that has displaced hundreds of thousands. Its ~31 million people are roughly two-thirds Christian and a third Muslim, with an economy of agriculture, timber, oil, and aluminium.
Common questions
- What was Cameroon?
- Cameroon, at the hinge of West and Central Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, is often called "Africa in miniature" for its ecological and cultural diversity — beaches, rainforest, savanna, the volcanic Mount Cameroon (4,095 m), and over 250 languages. Its precolonial history includes the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad, Bantu migrations, the 19th-century Fulani Adamawa Emirate, and sophisticated chiefdoms such as the Bamum kingdom, whose Sultan Njoya invented the Bamum script.
- When did Cameroon exist?
- Cameroon existed 1960–2024. On this map it is drawn 1960–2024.
- How large was Cameroon?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Cameroon covered about 468,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
- What is the present status of Cameroon?
- France outlawed the pro-independence Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) in 1955, provoking a long guerrilla war whose leaders — Ruben Um Nyobè, Félix-Roland Moumié, Ernest Ouandie — were assassinated; the insurgency continued until 1971.
Sources
Every source below was consulted while writing this entry.
- Wikipedia — Cameroon en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroon
This entry was written from the sources above and last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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