68 Fun Facts About Cameroon

What is the capital city of Cameroon?

Yaoundé, about 750 m up in the Centre Region, became the capital of French Cameroun in 1922 and kept the role at independence.

Which port city is regarded as Cameroon's economic capital?

Douala sits on the Wouri estuary, and its port handles most of Cameroon's exports of oil, cocoa, coffee and timber.

Cameroon's name comes from the Portuguese Rio dos Camarões, meaning river of what?

The Portuguese named the Wouri estuary for its swarms of ghost shrimp, Lepidophthalmus turneranus, which periodically fill the river in huge numbers.

Because it has coast, desert, mountains, rainforest and savanna, Cameroon is often nicknamed what?

The nickname Africa in miniature captures that variety; Cameroon straddles West and Central Africa and its people speak around 250 native languages.

Who became president of Cameroon in 1982?

Paul Biya, born in 1933 and prime minister from 1975, took over the presidency on 6 November 1982 when his predecessor resigned.

Who was Cameroon's first president, serving from independence until his surprise resignation in 1982?

Ahmadou Ahidjo led Cameroon from independence, resigned in November 1982, was later sentenced to death in absentia over a coup plot, and died in exile in Dakar in 1989.

In which year did the last German garrison in Kamerun surrender to Allied forces?

The Kamerun campaign ended in February 1916 when the last German post, the mountain fort at Mora, surrendered to the Allies.

After World War I, the German colony was split as League of Nations mandates between which two powers?

France took the larger eastern share and Britain two strips administered from Nigeria, so the mandates went to France and Britain; the British zone was derided as a 'colony of a colony'.

In what year did French Cameroun become independent?

French Cameroun became independent on 1 January 1960; the Southern Cameroons from the British side joined it on 1 October 1961 after a plebiscite.

Cameroon's public holiday on 20 May, National Day, marks a 1972 referendum that did what?

The 20 May 1972 vote abolished the federal system for a unitary state, the United Republic of Cameroon; East and West Cameroon had each kept a legislature and prime minister.

How many stars appear on Cameroon's tricolour flag?

Two stars stood for the federated states until 1975, when a single central star replaced them as a symbol of unity.

Cameroon's flag was first adopted in 1957 as a vertical tricolour of which three colours?

Green, red and yellow were adopted in 1957 as pan-African colours, with green for the southern forests, red for unity and yellow for the northern savanna and sun.

Which currency does Cameroon use?

The CFA franc used in Cameroon is the Central African version, issued by the Bank of Central African States from its headquarters in the capital and pegged to the euro.

What are the two official languages of Cameroon?

French and English are both official, a legacy of the French and British mandates; only the Northwest and Southwest regions are mainly anglophone.

Under what name have Anglophone separatists sought independence in Cameroon's Northwest and Southwest since 2017?

Ambazonia takes its name from Ambas Bay near Limbe; separatists declared the republic on 1 October 2017, the anniversary of the 1961 reunification.

Which body settled the Cameroon-Nigeria dispute over the Bakassi peninsula in 2002?

The International Court of Justice ruled for Cameroon on 10 October 2002, relying on a 1913 Anglo-German agreement; Nigeria completed the handover in August 2008.

Cameroon's men's national football team is nicknamed what?

The Indomitable Lions won the Africa Cup of Nations five times between 1984 and 2017 and reached the 1990 World Cup quarter-finals.

Cameroon, the first African quarter-finalist at the 1990 World Cup, lost narrowly to whom?

England won 3–2 after extra time, with two Gary Lineker penalties; Cameroon had stunned holders Argentina 1–0 in the tournament's opening match.

Which veteran striker came out of retirement to star for Cameroon at Italia '90?

Roger Milla celebrated each goal with a hip-swinging dance at the corner flag and in 2004 was named in Pelé's FIFA 100 list of living greats.

A Cameroonian striker broke his own record as the oldest World Cup goalscorer in 1994 at what age?

The striker was 42 when he scored against Russia on 28 June 1994, beating the age record he had set at Italia '90 in 1990.

Samuel Eto'o won the African Player of the Year award a record how many times?

Samuel Eto'o won it four times, in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2010, a tally later equalled by Yaya Touré; he also scored 18 Africa Cup of Nations goals.

Cameroon won Olympic gold in men's football at which Games?

Cameroon took the Sydney 2000 gold by beating Spain on penalties after a 2–2 draw, with Samuel Eto'o and Patrick Mboma in the squad.

Which triple jumper won Cameroon Olympic gold at both Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008?

Françoise Mbango Etone's 15.39 m in Beijing set an Olympic record that stood until 2021; she later switched to competing for France.

Cameroon-born Joel Embiid was named NBA Most Valuable Player in 2023 while playing centre for which team?

Joel Embiid, the Philadelphia 76ers centre, won the 2022–23 MVP after averaging a league-best 33.1 points, his second straight scoring title.

Which Cameroonian forward, nicknamed 'Spicy P', won an NBA title with the Toronto Raptors in 2019?

Pascal Siakam started every game of Toronto's 2019 title run, averaging nearly 20 points in the Finals against Golden State, the season he was also named Most Improved Player.

Which Cameroonian UFC heavyweight champion (2021-23) was famed as its hardest puncher?

Francis Ngannou, champion from March 2021 until leaving the UFC in January 2023, knocked out Alistair Overeem and Cain Velasquez inside the first two minutes.

Manu Dibango's 1972 hit, called the most sampled African song in history, is titled what?

Soul Makossa, recorded in 1972, was borrowed by Michael Jackson for the chant in 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin''; Manu Dibango died of COVID-19 in March 2020.

Which Cameroonian dance style began as war music of the Ewondo people around the capital?

Bikutsi, whose name means roughly 'beat the earth', grew from Beti and Ewondo gatherings; Anne-Marie Nzié took it into pop and Les Têtes Brulées carried it abroad in the 1980s.

Makossa, Cameroon's best-known pop genre, takes its name from a dance of which coastal people?

The Duala people's kossa dance gave makossa its name; the style took shape in the 1950s around the port city and reached record in the 1960s with Eboa Lotin and Manu Dibango.

Sultan Ibrahim Njoya of the Bamum kingdom is remembered for inventing what in 1896?

Njoya devised a writing script for his language, Bamum, around 1896; it evolved from pictographs to a syllabary of about 80 signs by 1910, and he also created an artificial language, Shümom.

Which walled city with a royal palace museum is the historic seat of the Bamum sultans?

Foumban, with its walls and the palace Njoya rebuilt in 1917, was the Bamum capital; the French exiled him to the colonial capital in 1931, and he died there in 1933.

Which amphibian, the world's largest frog, lives only in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea?

The goliath frog reaches about 32 cm from snout to vent and over 3 kg, and is threatened by hunting for food and the pet trade.

Which stew of bitter leaves, ground peanuts and crayfish is regarded as Cameroon's national dish?

Ndolé originated among coastal peoples of the Littoral Region; bitter leaves are simmered with peanut paste and served with plantains or bobolo, fermented cassava steamed in leaves.

Which southeastern Cameroon site became its first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987?

Dja Faunal Reserve, bounded on three sides by a loop of the Dja River, was inscribed in 1987 for its largely undisturbed rainforest and its 107 mammal species, five of them threatened.

Waza National Park, home to lions, elephants and giraffes, lies in which region of Cameroon?

Waza lies in the Far North Region near the Nigerian and Chadian borders; set up as a hunting reserve in 1934, it became a national park in 1968 and a biosphere reserve in 1979.

On which gulf's coast does Mount Cameroon, the country's highest peak, stand?

Mount Cameroon rises almost straight from the Gulf of Guinea coast near Limbe; lava from its 1922 eruption flowed all the way to the sea.

Roughly how tall is Cameroon's highest peak?

The Fako summit reaches 4,095 m, the highest point in sub-Saharan western and central Africa and the fourth most prominent peak on the continent.

A 1909 eruption of Mount Cameroon forced the German colonial government temporarily out of which capital town?

Buea, the German capital from 1901, was abandoned for the coast after the 1909 eruption; it later became capital of the Southern Cameroons and of the South-West Region.

A 1986 limnic eruption at which crater lake in Cameroon killed about 1,746 people?

Lake Nyos released a suffocating gas cloud on 21 August 1986; a degassing pipe installed in 2001, joined by two more in 2011, vents gas-rich water from the lake bottom.

The 1986 crater-lake disaster in Cameroon released a huge cloud of what?

The carbon dioxide that had built up in the lake's deep water burst out in August 1986 and, being denser than air, flowed down the valleys, killing people and cattle up to 25 km away.

How many died in the 1984 limnic eruption at Cameroon's Lake Monoun?

37 people died near Lake Monoun on 15 August 1984; a chemical-weapons attack was among the first suspicions, and the later disaster confirmed the limnic-eruption explanation.

Cameroon's territory is divided into how many semi-autonomous regions?

Cameroon has 10 regions, created from the former provinces in 2008, each under a presidentially appointed governor and subdivided into a total of 58 divisions.

Cameroon's president is elected by popular vote for a term of how many years?

The president serves seven years per term; a 2008 amendment removed the two-term limit, while the 180-member National Assembly sits for five years.

In 2017 the government cut off the Internet in Cameroon's English-speaking regions for how long?

The first shutdown lasted 94 days, from 17 January to 20 April 2017, hitting some five million people and the 'Silicon Mountain' start-ups of the Southwest.

How many countries share a land border with Cameroon?

Six countries border Cameroon: Nigeria, Chad, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.

Which beach resort hosts Cameroon's first deep-water port, whose first phase was finished in 2014?

Kribi's deep-water port, about 25 km south of the resort at Mboro, handled its first ships in 2018; the Lobé Falls nearby tumble almost directly into the Atlantic.

Portuguese sailors first reached the Cameroon coast in which year?

Fernando Pó's expedition reached the Cameroon coast in 1472, the first Europeans recorded there, two decades before Columbus crossed the Atlantic.

Which German explorer proclaimed the Kaiser's protectorate over the Cameroon coast in July 1884?

Gustav Nachtigal, sent as imperial commissioner, raised the German flag on the estuary on 14 July 1884; the Hamburg firm Woermann had traded there since 1868.

Which anti-colonial leader of the outlawed UPC was killed by the French army in 1958?

Ruben Um Nyobé, the UPC's secretary-general, was shot dead by French troops in the Bassa forest on 13 September 1958; the guerrilla war he began ran on until 1971.

Which Cameroonian novelist wrote the 1956 anti-colonial classic Une vie de boy, translated as Houseboy?

Ferdinand Oyono published Une vie de boy in 1956 while a law student in Paris; he later chaired UNICEF's executive board in 1977–78 and served as foreign minister in the 1990s.

Cameroonian-American Imbolo Mbue won the PEN/Faulkner Award for which 2016 debut novel?

Behold the Dreamers follows Jende Jonga, a Limbe immigrant chauffeuring a Lehman Brothers executive in New York as the 2008 crash hits; it won the 2017 PEN/Faulkner Award.

Isaac Menyoli, Cameroon's Winter Olympian at Salt Lake City 2002, competed in which sport?

Isaac Menyoli raced in cross-country skiing at Salt Lake City 2002, finishing at the back of the field in Cameroon's first Winter Games appearance.

Which brewer sponsored and lent its name to the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope for many years?

Guinness Cameroun sponsored the race from its 1973 start, lending it the name Guinness Race; the 38 km course up the volcano and back begins at Molyko Stadium.

Rhumsiki, famed for its volcanic plugs, lies in which mountains in Cameroon's north?

Rhumsiki sits in the Mandara range on the Nigerian border; André Gide called its landscape among the most beautiful in the world, and Kapsiki Peak rises 1,224 m.

Camfranglais, popular in Cameroon's cities, mixes the two official languages and what?

Cameroonian Pidgin English is the lingua franca of the formerly British-run regions.

The Sawa Ngondo festival centres on a devotee visiting the underwater kingdom of which spirits?

The jengu, mermaid-like water beings of Sawa belief, receive the diver, who is said to surface with dry clothes and a message; the Ngondo is held each December on the Wouri.

Cameroon's anthem was composed in 1928 by teacher-training students in which village?

Students at the Foulassi teacher-training school wrote 'Ô Cameroun, Berceau de nos Ancêtres' in 1928; it was adopted officially in 1957, with an English text by Bernard Fonlon added in 1961.

Which ancient Lake Chad culture was absorbed by the Kanem-Bornu empire by the 1500s?

The Sao, known for their walled towns and terracotta figurines, lived south of Lake Chad from before the common era until Bornu absorbed them around the 16th century.

Which Fulani-Kanuri term meaning 'pagan' is applied to northern peoples who resisted Islam?

Kirdi, from a Kanuri word for 'pagan', lumps together dozens of non-Muslim hill peoples of the north, such as the Kapsiki and Mafa; some have reclaimed the once pejorative label.

Which 1976 highlife hit by Cameroonian-Nigerian singer Prince Nico Mbarga sold millions across Africa?

Sweet Mother, recorded by Prince Nico Mbarga and Rocafil Jazz in 1976, is often credited with sales above 13 million across Africa.

Cameroon's oldest human traces, 30,000 years old, come from which Northwest Region rock shelter?

Shum Laka, a rock shelter near Bamenda in the Grassfields, holds occupation layers going back some 30,000 years and burials of about 8,000 and 3,000 years ago.

Between 1982 and 2022, Cameroon qualified for the men's World Cup how many times?

Cameroon made eight appearances between 1982 and 2022 — 1982, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2010, 2014 and 2022 — yet escaped the group stage only in 1990.

What did Britain eventually do with most of the plantations seized in its Cameroons mandate?

Britain sold them back to their former German owners at London auctions in 1924, after British buyers showed little interest; Germans again ran most estates around Victoria and Tiko until 1939.

On what date did France outlaw the pro-independence Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC)?

France dissolved the UPC by decree on 13 July 1955 after riots in May; the guerrilla war that followed cost the party leaders such as Félix-Roland Moumié, later poisoned in Geneva.

Which 2006 deal set out Nigeria's withdrawal from the Bakassi peninsula in Cameroon's favour?

The Greentree Agreement, signed on 12 June 2006 at the Greentree estate on Long Island with Kofi Annan as witness, scheduled Nigeria's withdrawal, completed in August 2008.

Cameroon's main railway, the Transcamerounais, ends at which northern town?

The line reached Ngaoundéré in 1974; from that railhead, freight for Chad and northern Cameroon continues by road.

Which critically endangered gorilla subspecies, a few hundred strong, straddles the Cameroon–Nigeria border?

The Cross River gorilla, estimated at roughly 300 animals, survives in scattered highland forests such as Cameroon's Takamanda and Kagwene reserves along the Nigerian border.

Which couturier, a guest on Paris's haute couture calendar from 2020, is Cameroonian?

Imane Ayissi, a former dancer from the capital, was the first sub-Saharan African designer invited onto the official Paris haute couture calendar, in January 2020.