Douala

Douala (dOO-ä'lu) [key], city (1991 est. pop. 1,604,500), Cameroon, on the Wuori River estuary. Cameroon's largest city and major port, it is a commercial and transportation center handling most of the country's exports (chiefly cocoa and coffee) as well as transit trade from Chad. Douala developed as a center of the slave trade after the Portuguese arrived in 1472. It later became part of a German protectorate (1884) and of the French Cameroons (1919).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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