French West Africa

French West Africa (French: Afrique occidentale française, AOF) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger. The capital of the federation was Dakar. The federation existed from 1895 until 1960.

Read more about French West Africa:  History, Territorial Changes, Federal Structure, Colonial Administration, Local Administration, Geography

Famous quotes containing the words french, west and/or africa:

    In matter of commerce the fault of the Dutch
    Is offering too little and asking too much.
    The French are with equal advantage content,
    So we clap on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent.
    George Canning (1770–1827)

    But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
    However rare—rare it be;
    And when I crumble, who will remember
    This lady of the West Country?
    Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)

    In Africa I had indeed found a sufficiently frightful kind of loneliness but the isolation of this American ant heap was even more shattering.
    Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)