Senegal - National Park of the Magdalen Islands

The Îles de la Madeleine National Park, both natural paradise and cultural site for the fishing community Lebou, is about 4 km west of Dakar in the Atlantic Ocean. It houses the protective genius "Ndoek-Daour" of the city of Dakar according to the traditions of this community. This park, with an area of ​​15 ha, is composed of two islets surrounded by a maritime fringe of 50 meters. The cliff reaches a height of 35 meters and surrounds a horizontal plateau, dominated to the south by two small rocky snags, one of which bears the ruins of a very old construction dating back at least several centuries. To the south, the plateau slopes gently towards a creek, sometimes called "HUBERT Creek", the only place where berthing is possible. Behind this creek is a natural basin, a kind of aquarium 30 m long, 10 m wide and 4 m deep, and "where you can bathe safely" (Adanson, 1749 ). 250 meters to the southeast, some inaccessible rocks, forming two groups of unequal importance, justify the expression "Iles de la Madeleine". On some maps these reefs are often called "Lougnes Islands".

Senegal - The tumuli of Cekeen

Mounds of earth, commonly called mbanaar in Wolof, are funerary monuments made with sand. This is a procedure that was described very early (eleventh century) by the geographer Andalou Al Beckri speaking of the burial of the king of Ghana. Originally, the deceased, accompanied by some members of his court as well as important furniture and generous offerings, was placed under the roof of his hut which was then covered with earth to form a burial mound. According to a first inventory, published by Martin and Becker in 1984, there are more than 10,316 tumuli in Senegal in 1,896 sites, making it one of the largest known concentrations in Africa. Of all the sites recognized in Senegal that of Cekeen (Thiékène), a village in the center of the country, is the most remarkable. It is home to the tallest tumulus - about 12 meters - called "Wago Fal", comprised of 56 towers, one of the most spectacular tumulus sites in all of West Africa.

Senegal - The Escales of the Senegal River

Stopovers on the Senegal River were the natural backcountry of Saint-Louis of Senegal already on the World Heritage List. The stopovers were originally seen as adaptations of the ladders with consuls and commissionaires, shops and offices for use by Europeans. In Senegal they were called stopovers to better reflect the fact that it was primarily temporary floating scales where gum, skins, ivory, slaves, etc. were treated. Some stopovers such as the Red Terrier, the Desert, The Cock, Donaye etc., played an important role in trade on the Senegal River, but they have not been the subject of significant adjustments, the bulk of trade being on board the boats. However forts and counters were installed on the Haut-Fleuve and Falémé, for the slave trade. It is only gradually that more or less perennial development will see the light of day on certain sites that posterity will retain under the name of stopovers of the river. They will remain dynamic throughout European colonization, making the river a vital axis of movement of people and goods. The most important stopovers were Dagana, Podor, Richard Toll, Salde and Matam. Each of these localities had a dock, and a number of commercial facilities whose architecture and functionality were of the same inspiration. In some cases, fortified posts and cantonments, and then the administrative infrastructure, have been installed. The history of these settlements is remarkably described, since the 17th century, by many cartographic documents which make it one of the best known parts of the continent. This coherent set of stops along the Senegal River was the real raison d'être of the ocean city of Saint-Louis which owes most of its economic appeal.

Senegal - Old Rufisque

From 1444, the Portuguese caravels of Prince Henry the Navigator reached the peninsula of Cape Verde, then known as Berzeguiche. On the edge of the bay dug in this peninsula, Berzeguiche is scattered in a wood of palm groves, the small village of "Mame Coumba Lamb", on a swampy ground, crisscrossed by the arms of a river with fresh water: Rio Fresco. In the 16th century, the small fishing village will take the name of Rufisque. Classified at the same time as Saint-Louis, Dakar and Goree among the radiating centers of the west coast of Africa, the city was erected in full-function commune by decree of June 12, 1880, well before Dakar. Following the application of a town plan developed in 1862, Rufisque is organized in a dualistic structure: in the center the new district of Escale where are the villas of the big traders and the other, to the is like in the west, the agglomeration of the Lebu districts. The protection perimeter of this city is circumscribed in the sector today limited to the south by the east and west canals and to the north by the SNCFS railway line.

Senegal - The island of Carabane

The island of Carabane is located in the extreme south of Senegal in the estuary of the river Casamance 60 km from Ziguinchor, the regional capital, and 30 minutes of canoe from the nearest continental village, Elinkine. It is a mound of about 57 km2 covered by a mangrove dense mangrove with lush vegetation populated by prestigious species such as cheese, baobabs, palm and coconut palms. Former slave trade, first French trading post in 1836, Carabane was also the first administrative capital of Casamance, until 1904, when it was replaced by Ziguinchor. Under the Administrator Emmanuel Bertrand BOCANDE, Carabane was endowed with a plan of urbanism in 1852 which allowed the construction of several buildings of a splendid architecture: The catholic mission in 1880 (become a big hotel), the church of style Breton in 1885, the penitentiary asylum of deportation of resistance to colonization, modestly called "the Special School", etc. The ruins of the warehouses of trading houses and the famous cemetery where Captain Protet, founder of Dakar, buried standing, his eyes fixed on the shore as he had wished, are vestiges of the historical role of Carabane which, by its position privileged strategic, was a bridgehead of French penetration in Casamance. But as much as the testimony value of these remains, it is their inscription in a beautiful natural site that results in the charm of the historic island and makes Carabane a site full of indefinable resonances.

Senegal - Aéropostale

Aéropostale is a serial nomination aimed at a property whose traces are still perceptible in Senegal in Saint-Louis and Dakar. The Aéropostale line was initiated in 1918 by Georges Latécoère. It was an airline project between France, Senegal and Argentina in South America. The project will be successful with the inauguration of the Dakar / Buenos-Aires section in June 1925, making Senegal and Argentina the natural partners in the success of this tremendous human and technological adventure which, in the time of its maximum extension, connecting nine countries on three continents and spreading its wings over 13,300 kilometers, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.

Senegal - Rural architecture of Basse-Casamance: The impluvium huts of Bandial kingdom

In Basse-Casamance, an African region considered as one of the "primary cradles" of rice cultivation, remarkable habitat forms have developed, as sophisticated as the types of agricultural development carried out in a vast estuarine mangrove zone. Throughout this area, the large banco houses, with their solid and elaborate frameworks and varied plans, show a great mastery of advanced architectural techniques. In the kingdom of Bandial, called the Mof Ëwi community, a totally original architectural form in Africa has been created: the crown house with central impluvium. Every large family once had a single house, all of whose elements under one roof with a double slope are arranged in a circle; the different rooms of the house and form a crown around a small central courtyard on which the inner face of the roof falls into a funnel, whose diameter is very variable, lets light and collects rain that falls into a trough from where it flows outside by a buried rhone drain. To multiply the pieces as the development of the family, we sometimes split the house by creating a second impluvium paired with the first. These houses with central impluvium crowns are practically only a few examples, whereas they were formerly also spread on the north bank of Casamance. The agrarian society which is at the origin of this unique earthen architecture also preserves cultural traditions and material goods of great richness, remarkably preserved and therefore also susceptible of inscription to the patrimony.