St-Louis

Discovered in 1659 by France and baptized Saint-Louis-du-Fort in homage to the French king Louis IX, the city was the first permanent French settlement in Senegal. It was a centre for slave and gum arabic trading. After the French Revolution, most of its inhabitants were given French citizenship.

Saint-Louis, or Ndar as it is called in Wolof, is the capital of Senegal's Saint-Louis Region. Located in the northwest of Senegal at the mouth of the Senegal River, and 200 miles north of Senegal's Capital City Dakar, it has a population of 171,000 and it is one of the four most important cities of Senegal.

Founded on St-Louis Island, the city has long spread on to the Langue de Barbarie spit, home to the districts of Ndar Tout and Guet Ndar, right up against the Mauritanian border at the north end and home to the fishing port and main market. The city has also spread on to the mainland, where the district of Sor is home to the seldom used train station.

Capital of the former French Western Africa from 1895 to 1902, and capital of Senegal until 1958, Saint-Louis became the leading economic, commercial, artistic and urban centre of sub-Saharan Africa during the 1700's.

Today, rich in three centuries of history, in cultural background, geography, architecture and many other characteristics, Saint Louis is a bridge between the savanna and the desert, the ocean and the river, tradition and modernity, Islam and Christianity, Europe and Africa.

Home to a society with a distinctive lifestyle, Saint-Louis has retained its unique identity. “No one comes without falling in love with the city," proudly say its people who consider Saint-Louis as the birthplace of Senegalese Teranga, the Wolof word for hospitability.
Pierre Loti wrote in St-Louis « Le roman d'un spahi » and « Le roman d'un jeune officier pauvre ».

The aviators Jean Mermoz and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry liked this stopover.

The saint-louisien Batling Siki was the champion of the world of boxing in 1936.

Saint-Louis has been just classified world inheritance by UNESCO.

We hope to make you discover it, and that you will like yourselves it.