Cameroon - Tourism and Travel

The Republic of Cameroon is a country on the Gulf of Guinea, in central west Africa.

Cameroon has an area of 183,569 square miles (475,442 square kilometers).

There are plains along the coast and plateaus in the center and south of the country.

Dorsale Camerounaise, or Cameroon Ridge, consists of volcanoes and fold mountains that run along western Cameroon and extend into the Gulf of Guinea, where they appear as islands.

Mount Cameroon, a volcanic massif is in Cameroon, near the Gulf of Guinea.

Cameroon is covered in tropical rainforest.

Part of the Congo Basin is located in southeastern Cameroon, and part of the Lake Chad Basin can be found in northern Cameroon.

The Congo River Basin is the second largest river basin in the world, after the Amazon River Basin.

Lake Chad is a remnant of what was once a large inland sea. Because of climate change, it is now a shallow, freshwater lake, surrounded by large sand flats where there once was water.

In the 1970s, a series of droughts caused Lake Chad to shrink to an area of only about 1,000 square miles (2,599 square kilometers.)

The capital of Cameroon is Yaoundé.

19,522,000 people live in Cameroon.

31% are Cameroon Highlanders, 19% are Equatorial Bantu, 11% are Kirdi, 10% are Fulani and 8% are Northwestern Bantu.

English and French are official languages. Bamileke is also spoken.

35% of the people are Roman Catholic, 25% practice traditional religions, 22% are Muslim and 18% are Protestant.

Cameroon has land that is well suited for agriculture.

The main exports are oil, cocoa and timber.

Cameroon is underdeveloped economically.

The official currency of Cameroon is the CFA franc, which equals 100 centimes.

Cameroon has a presidential system of government.

It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.