CameroonCameroun

The highlands where Cameroon meets Nigeria are thought to be the cradle of the Bantu languages, which spread across half the continent over three thousand years. By the 16th century the Grassfields held small kingdoms with sacred rulers, and on the coast the Duala traded ivory and enslaved people with Europeans. In the north, the Fulani jihad of the early 19th century created the emirate of Adamawa, with lamidos ruling from towns such as Ngaoundéré and Garoua.

Portuguese sailors named the Wouri estuary Rio dos Camarões in 1472 for its prawns. Germany signed treaties with Duala chiefs in 1884 and built Kamerun into a plantation colony, forcing labour for rubber, cocoa and bananas and a railway inland. After Germany's defeat in the First World War the territory was divided: France took four-fifths, Britain two strips along Nigeria. The divide is why Cameroon speaks French and English today.

The Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) demanded independence and reunification from 1948. France banned it in 1955 and fought a war against its maquis in the Sanaga-Maritime and Bamiléké regions that killed tens of thousands and continued after independence; UPC leaders Ruben Um Nyobè (1958) and Félix-Roland Moumié (1960) were killed. French Cameroon became independent on 1 January 1960 under Ahmadou Ahidjo. In a 1961 UN plebiscite, British Southern Cameroons voted to join; the north voted for Nigeria.

Ahidjo ended the federation in 1972, creating a unitary state. He handed power to Paul Biya in 1982. Biya survived a 1984 coup attempt, allowed multiparty elections from 1992, removed presidential term limits in 2008 and has won every election since. In 2016 lawyers and teachers in the anglophone regions protested against French being imposed in courts and schools; the crackdown turned into an armed conflict with separatists in 2017 that continues. In the Far North, Boko Haram has attacked since 2014. In October 2025 Biya, then 92, was declared winner of an eighth term; protests were met with lethal force and the main challenger, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, went into exile.

The high plateau of western Cameroon, the Grassfields, is a patchwork of more than a hundred chiefdoms (chefferies or fondoms) ruled by a fon or chief who is both political leader and sacred figure. Palaces are walled compounds with tall thatched ceremonial halls, carved door frames and posts, and houses for the chief's wives, notables and secret societies. Masks, beaded thrones and bronze pipes belong to the court and appear at funerals and festivals.

The Bamoun kingdom, ruled from Foumban since about 1394, is the most famous. Its 17th sultan, Ibrahim Njoya (reigned about 1886–1933), invented a script for the Bamoun language, a new religion blending Islam and Christianity, a calendar and a map of his kingdom, and built a palace modelled on German colonial architecture. The French deposed him in 1931. The palace museum and the new Musée des Rois Bamoun hold the royal collection.

The Bamiléké chiefdoms — Bandjoun, Bafoussam, Bangangté, Baham and many others — are known for their enterprising diaspora, which dominates trade in Douala and Yaoundé, and for elaborate funerals that bring families home from across the world. Visitors are welcome at several palaces with a guide; ask before photographing, and expect a fee that supports the court.

Cameroon has around 250 ethnic groups. The Beti-Pahuin (Ewondo, Bulu, Eton, Fang) dominate the Centre and South and, under Biya, the state; the Bamiléké and Bamoun the West; the Duala, Bassa and Bakweri the coast; the Fulani (Peul) and many Kirdi (non-Muslim) peoples the north. The Baka, forest hunter-gatherers of the south-east, face pressure on their land from logging and parks.

French dominates eight of the ten regions; English is the first official language of the North-West and South-West, where Cameroonian Pidgin is the everyday tongue. Young city dwellers speak Camfranglais, a mix of French, English, Pidgin and local words that also fills rap lyrics.

About seven in ten Cameroonians are Christian, with strong Catholic and Presbyterian churches and a fast-growing Pentecostal movement; about a quarter are Muslim, mostly in the north. Traditional beliefs about ancestors, witchcraft and healing sit beside both; skulls of ancestors are kept and honoured in Bamiléké families.

Cameroon's range explains the 'Africa in miniature' label: mangroves and beaches on the Gulf of Guinea, rainforest in the south and east, a volcanic chain running from Mount Cameroon (4,040 m) through the Grassfields, the Adamawa plateau, and savanna and Sahel down to Lake Chad. Mount Cameroon is an active volcano that last erupted in 2012; Lake Nyos, a crater lake in the North-West, released a cloud of carbon dioxide in 1986 that killed about 1,700 people.

Parks in the open south are forest parks. Campo Ma'an, near the Equatorial Guinea border, protects forest elephants, gorillas and a coastline where leatherback and green turtles nest. The Dja Faunal Reserve, a UNESCO site, is almost encircled by the Dja River. Lobéké in the far south-east is part of the Sangha Trinational with the CAR and Congo. The northern savanna parks, Waza and Bénoué, have lost much of their wildlife and lie inside areas under travel advice.

Primate sanctuaries near Yaoundé (Mefou) and in Limbe care for chimpanzees and gorillas orphaned by the bushmeat trade, which remains the biggest threat to Cameroon's wildlife.

Makossa, a Douala dance music built on bass and guitar, went global with Manu Dibango's 'Soul Makossa' in 1972. Bikutsi, from the Beti of the Centre, is faster and rawer, with lyrics full of double meaning. Today's Afro-pop and urban music mixes both with Nigerian and Ivorian styles.

Football is close to a national religion: the Indomitable Lions reached the World Cup quarter-finals in 1990, Roger Milla danced at the corner flag, and Cameroon has won the Africa Cup of Nations five times. Samuel Eto'o, now president of the football federation, is the best-known Cameroonian in the world.

Douala's Doual'art centre commissions public artworks across the city, including the recycled 'Nouvelle Liberté' statue at the Deido roundabout. Writers Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono satirised colonial rule; Imbolo Mbue and Djaïli Amadou Amal reach global readers today.

Every region has its sauce. Ndolé, bitterleaf cooked with groundnuts and prawns or beef, is the national dish. Bamiléké cooks serve taro with a yellow palm-oil sauce; the Bassa make mbongo tchobi, black with charred spices; the Beti wrap groundnut and leaf pastes into okok and sanga. Grilled fish with miondo cassava sticks is Friday-night food on the coast, and soya beef skewers, from the north, are sold everywhere after dark.

Days start early, with beignets, beans and maize porridge at a roadside stall. Markets are the heart of towns and run on bargaining and mobile money. Funerals, especially among the Bamiléké, are the biggest social events, planned for months and lasting days.

Beer is the social currency: 65 cl bottles of 33 Export or Castel shared in a bar, with loud music and grilled meat. Palm wine is fresh in the morning and strong by evening.