Dakar

The Lebou people were fishing and farming on the Cap-Vert peninsula long before Europeans arrived. Just offshore, Gorée Island changed hands between the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French and became a symbol of the Atlantic slave trade. France founded Dakar in 1857, and in 1902 it became the capital of French West Africa, a federation stretching across eight colonies. Residents of Dakar and three other Senegalese towns held French citizenship rights early on, and in 1914 Blaise Diagne became the first Black African elected to the French parliament. Senegal gained independence in 1960 under the poet-president Léopold Sédar Senghor, a founder of the Négritude movement, and Dakar became a cultural capital of francophone Africa.

Teranga, the Wolof word for hospitality, is the heart of Senegalese life: expect to be invited to share a meal around a common bowl. Thieboudienne, rice and fish simmered in tomato with vegetables, is the national dish, followed by sweet attaya tea served in three rounds. Mbalax, the driving dance music made famous by Youssou N'Dour, fills the clubs at night. Wrestling, laamb, draws huge crowds, and the city's markets and tailors turn bold wax-print fabrics into made-to-measure outfits in a day or two.