Cameroon: Regions, Cities & Travel Guide

What is Cameroon known for?

People call Cameroon "Africa in miniature", and the terrain earns it. The volcanic bulk of Mount Cameroon rises straight from the Atlantic coast near Limbe, while Kribi's beaches run south to the point where the Lobé River spills into the ocean over a waterfall. Inland, Yaoundé sits on its ring of hills and Douala works the Wouri estuary as the country's port.

Some 250 languages are spoken across its ten regions. That single fact tells you most of the story.

Where is Cameroon?

Cameroon fills a wedge of Central Africa between the Gulf of Guinea and Lake Chad, and few countries pack this much variety into their borders. The coastline opens on the Bight of Biafra, where the volcanic mass of Mount Cameroon climbs to the highest ground in West Africa straight out of the sea near Limbe. Behind the shore, equatorial rainforest carpets the low southern plateau, drained toward the Atlantic by the Sanaga, the longest river in the country.

Flat ground never lasts. Away from the forest the land rises to the grassy Adamawa Plateau, a rugged east-to-west barrier that divides the humid south from the drier north and averages around a thousand metres. Beyond it the country tips down toward the Sahel.

The plains around Waza, in the far north, run out to the shrinking shore of Lake Chad, and here the rainforest of the south gives way entirely to open savanna and thorn. In the west, a chain of volcanic highlands and crater lakes forms the fertile grassfields, cooler and greener than the coast. From beach to volcano to savanna in a single country, the range is the point.

What is the history of Cameroon?

Cameroon carries the marks of three colonial powers, and the split still shapes the map. Portuguese sailors named the Wouri estuary the Rio dos Camarões, the river of prawns, and that word for shrimp eventually became the name of the whole country. Germany claimed the territory as Kamerun in 1884 and ran it until the First World War.

After Germany's defeat the League of Nations handed most of the land to France and a slice in the west to Britain, and that partition drew the line between a French-speaking majority and an English-speaking minority that endures to this day. Independence came in stages. French Cameroun became sovereign on the first day of 1960, and the following year the southern British-held zone voted to join it while the north chose Nigeria instead.

The two halves were fused into a single state, a reunification of lands that had all once been German Kamerun. Ahmadou Ahidjo took the presidency and held it for more than two decades. The colonial border never fully healed.

The tension between anglophone and francophone Cameroon, written into the country at its founding, remains its defining political fact.

What is Cameroon like?

With more than 250 ethnic groups, Cameroon is less one culture than a working federation of many. In the western grassfields the Bamileke run a lattice of small chiefdoms whose carved thrones, beaded masks, and elephant dance regalia are among the most recognisable art in Central Africa. The Fulani brought Islam and cattle down the northern plains in the nineteenth century, and their emirates still order life across the Sahel edge of the country.

Between them sit the forest peoples of the south and the Duala of the coast. Food carries the mix. Ndolé is the national dish and it simmers bitterleaf with peanuts and either meat or shrimp, and it belongs first to the Douala kitchen before it belongs to everyone.

Music travels furthest of all. Makossa, the funky coastal dance sound, went global when Manu Dibango cut "Soul Makossa", and its bassline was borrowed by pop records worldwide. English and French are both official, a legacy no other Central African neighbour shares.

Two colonial tongues, hundreds of mother ones, one loud and various country.

What is the climate of Cameroon?

Cameroon's weather tracks its terrain. The coast around Limbe and Douala is equatorial, hot and soaked, and the western foot of Mount Cameroon at Debundscha ranks among the wettest places on earth. Move inland and up onto the Adamawa Plateau and the air cools, with a clear dry season from about November to April.

The far north, out toward Lake Chad, turns semi-arid and fierce, baking through a long dry spell before short summer rains. One flag, several climates.

How do you get to Cameroon?

Most travellers arrive by air into Douala, whose international airport is the country's busiest gateway and sits close to the coast and the port. Yaoundé, the capital, takes the second share of flights and opens the centre. Getting between regions is the real work.

Only a small fraction of Cameroon's roads are paved, so intercity coaches and the Camrail line linking Douala to the north do much of the heavy lifting across long distances. Plan the internal legs first. Distances here are national.