For the entire area in Africa colonized by France, see French Africa.
French West Africa
Afrique-Occidentale française(French)
غرب أفريقيا الفرنسية (Arabic) Gharb 'afriqya al-faransia
1895–1958
Flag
French West Africa (green) after World War II
Status
Federation of French colonies
Capital
Saint Louis (1895–1902) Dakar (1902–1960)
Common languages
French (official) Arabic, Fula, Songhay, Hausa, Mossi, Mandinka, Wolof, Bambara, Berber languages, Mande languages widely spoken
Religion
Roman Catholicism, Islam, Animism[1][2][3]
Historical era
New Imperialism
• Established
27 October 1895
• Fifth Republic
5 October 1958
Area
• Total
4,689,000[4] km2 (1,810,000 sq mi)
Currency
French West African franc
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Senegambia and Niger
French Sudan
French Guinea
French Upper Volta
French Dahomey
French Togoland
French Senegal
French Community
Republic of Dahomey
Guinea
Ivory Coast
Mali Federation
Mauritania
Niger
Republic of Upper Volta
Italian Libya
Afrique occidentale française Commercial Relations Report, showing the profile of a Fula woman, January–March 1938
French West Africa (French: Afrique-Occidentale française, AOF) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger. The federation existed from 1895 until 1958. Its capital was Saint-Louis in Senegal until 1902, and then Dakar until the federation's collapse in 1960.
With an area of 4,689,000 km2, French West Africa was eight times the size of Metropolitan France.[4] French Equatorial Africa had an additional area of 2,500,000 km2.[4]
^Lawrance, Benjamin Nicholas (2007). Locality, Mobility, and "nation": Periurban Colonialism in Togo's Eweland, 1900-1960. University Rochester Press. ISBN 9781580462648.
^Hastings, Adrian (5 January 1995). The Church in Africa, 1450-1950. Clarendon Press. p. 417. ISBN 9780191520556.
^Kobo, Ousman (2012). Unveiling Modernity in Twentieth-Century West African Islamic Reforms. Brill Publishers. p. 76. ISBN 9789004233133.
^ abcSmith, Leonard V. (2023). French Colonialism: From the Ancien Régime to the Present. Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ISBN 9781108799157. OCLC 1389826279.
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