N'Djamena

N'Djamena is the capital of Chad, a city where the Chari and Logone rivers meet on the border with Cameroon. Its name comes from Niamina, a nearby Arab village, and is usually read as place of rest. Across the Logone lies the Cameroonian town of Kousséri, linked to it by a bridge.

The French commander Émile Gentil founded a military post on the site in 1900 and named it Fort-Lamy after the officer François-Joseph-Amédée Lamy. The post grew into the administrative town of the French colony of Chad, which was part of French Equatorial Africa. It became the capital of an independent Chad in the 1960s, and in 1973 President François Tombalbaye gave it its present name as part of a campaign to replace colonial names across the country.

Société de Raffinage de N'Djamena runs the refinery at Djermaya, north of the city, which processes crude oil from the Bongor basin fields. The Grand Marché sells cattle hides, gum arabic, dried fish from Lake Chad and cloth brought from Nigeria and Cameroon. Cattle, camels and goats from the Sahel are traded in the city before they cross the border to Cameroon and Nigeria.

The Grand Mosque, also called the King Faisal Mosque, has twin minarets that rise above the old center. The National Museum of Chad shows objects from the Sao culture, who lived around Lake Chad and made terracotta figures and bronze ornaments. Place de la Nation, a wide square near the presidential palace, holds the parades of Independence Day each August. The Chagoua Bridge, built with Chinese help, carries traffic over the Chari to the southern districts of the city.