Dakar
Dakar, Senegal

Dakar is the capital and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city in the Old World as well as on the African mainland. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 2.45 million. The area around Dakar was settled in the 15th century. The Portuguese established a presence on the island of Gorée off the coast of Cap-Vert and used it as a base for the Atlantic slave trade. France took over the island in 1677. Following the abolition of the slave trade and French annexation of the mainland area in the 19th century, Dakar grew into a major regional port and a major city of the French colonial empire. In 1902, Dakar replaced Saint-Louis as the capital of French West Africa. From 1959 to 1960, Dakar was the capital of the short-lived Mali Federation. In 1960, it became the capital of the independent Republic of Senegal. Dakar is home to multiple national and regional banks as well as numerous international organizations. From 1978 to 2007, it was also the traditional finishing point of the Dakar Rally.

Kano
Kano, Nigeria

Kano is the capital of Kano State in North-West, Nigeria. It is situated in the Sahelian geographic region, south of the Sahara. Kano is the commercial nerve center of Northern Nigeria and is the second largest city in Nigeria, after Lagos. The Kano metropolis initially covered 137 square kilometers (53 square miles), and comprised six local government areas (LGAs) — Kano Municipal, Fagge, Dala, Gwale, Tarauni and Nasarawa; However, it now covers two additional LGAs — Ungogo and Kumbotso. The total area of Metropolitan Kano is now 499 square kilometers (193 square miles), with a population of 2,828,861 as of the 2006 Nigerian census. The principal inhabitants of the city are the Hausa people. As in most parts of northern Nigeria, the Hausa language is widely spoken in Kano. The city is the capital of the Kano Emirate. The current emir, Muhammadu Sanusi II, was enthroned on 8 June 2014 after the death of Alhaji Ado Bayero, the thirtieth emir of Kano, on Friday, 6 June 2014. The city’s Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, the main airport serving northern Nigeria, is named after a politician, Mallam Aminu Kano.

Lagos
Lagos, Nigeria

Lagos is Nigeria’s economic focal point, generating a significant portion of the country’s GDP. Most commercial and financial business is carried out in the central business district situated on the island. This is also where most of the country’s commercial banks and financial institutions and major corporations are headquartered. Lagos has one of the highest standards of living as compared to other cities in Nigeria as well as in Africa. The Port of Lagos is Nigeria’s leading port and one of the largest and busiest in Africa. It is administered by the Nigerian Ports Authority and it is split into three main sections: Lagos port, in the main channel next to Lagos Island, Apapa Port and Tin Can Port, both located in Badagry Creek, which flows into Lagos Harbour from the west. The port has seen growing amounts of crude oil exported, with export figures rising. Oil and petroleum products provide 14% of GDP and 90% of foreign exchange earnings in Nigeria as a whole.

nouakchott
Nouakchott, Mauritania

Nouakchott derived from Berber word; Nawaksu meaning (“place of the winds”) is the capital and largest city of Mauritania. It is one of the largest cities in the Sahara. The city also serves as the administrative and economic center of Mauritania. Nouakchott was a small village of little importance until 1958, when it was chosen as the capital of the nascent nation of Mauritania. It was designed and built to accommodate 15,000 people, but droughts and increasing desertification since the 1970s have displaced a vast number of Mauritanians who resettled in Nouakchott. This caused massive urban growth and overcrowding, with the city having an official population of just under a million as of 2013. The resettled population inhabited slum areas under poor conditions, but the living conditions of a portion of these inhabitants have since been ameliorated. The city is the hub of the Mauritanian economy and is home to a deep-water port and one of the country’s two international airports. It hosts the University of Nouakchott and several other more specialized institutes of higher learning.

port-harcourt
Port-Harcourt, Nigeria

Port-Harcourt is a Mayoralty and the capital of Rivers State, South-South, Nigeria. It lies along the Bonny River and is located in the Niger Delta. As of 2016, the Port Harcourt urban area has an estimated population of 1,865,000 inhabitants, up from 1,382,592 as of 2006. The area that became Port Harcourt in 1912 was before that part of the farmlands of the Diobu village group of the Ikwerre people. The colonial administration of Nigeria created the port to export coal from the collieries of Enugu located 243 kilometers (151 mi) north of Port Harcourt, to which it was linked by a railway called the Eastern Line, also built by the British. In 1956 crude oil was discovered in commercial quantities at Oloibiri, and Port Harcourt’s economy turned to petroleum when the first shipment of Nigerian crude oil was exported through the city in 1958. Through the benefits of the Nigerian petroleum industry, Port Harcourt was further developed, with aspects of modernization such as overpasses, city blocks and taller more substantial buildings. Oil firms that currently have offices in the city include Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron. There are a number of institutions of tertiary education in Port Harcourt, mostly government-owned. These institutions include, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State College of Arts and Science, Ignatius Ajuru University and Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology. The current Mayor is Soni Sam Ejekwu. Port Harcourt’s primary airport is Port Harcourt International Airport, located on the outskirts of the city; the NAF base is the location of the only other airport and is used by commercial airlines Aero Contractors and Air Nigeria for domestic flights.

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