Dakar sits at the very tip of the Cap-Vert peninsula, the westernmost point of mainland Africa. It's a crowded, noisy, thoroughly alive city of over three million people — a French-colonial capital that has spilled out of its old grid of boulevards and filled the peninsula with markets, mosques and improvised neighbourhoods. The pace is fast, the traffic is chaotic, the music is everywhere.
The old colonial core around Place de l'Indépendance still has the tree-lined avenues and shuttered buildings that made Dakar feel European to early 20th-century visitors. The Grande Mosquée and the IFAN Museum of African Arts are both within walking distance, and the fish market at Soumbédioune on the western Corniche is one of the best things in the city at sunset. A short ferry ride away is Île de Gorée, the small UNESCO-listed island that was a holding point for the Atlantic slave trade — moving, beautiful, and essential.
Above Ouakam, the African Renaissance Monument — a 49-metre bronze taller than the Statue of Liberty — looms over the western peninsula, a few minutes' drive from the modernist Mosque of the Divinity wedged into the basalt cliffs. The vast new Museum of Black Civilisations, opened in 2018, has set out to host the artworks that European museums are slowly returning to the continent.
Dakar's nightlife is legendary across West Africa. Mbalax, the local sound driven by tama drums, was popularised worldwide by Youssou N'Dour, whose club Thiossane is still going. Friday and Saturday nights go late.
The city can be tough on first-time visitors — hustlers, scams, and sensory overload — but push through and you'll find some of the warmest hospitality on the continent.