Port-Gentil () or Mandji is the second-largest city of

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

, and it is a leading

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

. It is the center of Gabon's

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

and

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

industries. The city is located on a

delta island Delta Island is an island long, lying close southeast of Lambda Island and east of Alpha Island in the Melchior Islands, Palmer Archipelago. The name, derived from the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, was probably given by Discovery Investig ...

in the Ogooue delta with no bridges to the mainland. Nearby

Cape Lopez Cape Lopez () is a headland on the coast of Gabon, west central Africa. The westernmost point of Gabon, it separates the Gulf of Guinea from the South Atlantic Ocean. Cape Lopez is the northernmost point of a low, wooded island between two mouths ...

is Gabon's westernmost point. As of 2013 census, it had a population of 136,462.

History

In 1473, the Portuguese navigator Lopo Gonçalves sailed near Cape Lopez. In 1722, pirates led by Bartholomew Roberts fought a battle in the Cape Lopez Bay against the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. The encounter ended in Roberts' death. The settlement was established on Mandji Island in the delta of the Ogooué River by the French, who signed a treaty with the

Orungu The Kingdom of Orungu (c. 1700–1927) ( pt, Reino da Orungu, french: Royaume d'Orungu) was a small, pre-colonial state of what is now Gabon in Central Africa. Through its control of the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was able to be ...

people in 1873. It was used as a base for the expeditions of

de Brazza Pietro Paolo Savorgnan di Brazzà, later known as Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza; 26 January 1852 – 14 September 1905), was an Italian-born, naturalized French explorer. With his family's financial help, he explored the Ogoou� ...

into the interior, then in 1894 a

customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...

post was set up, becoming the nucleus of a trading center that included Hatton & Cookson, John Holt, Woermann,

Société du Haut-Ogooué Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

, and Compagnie d'Exploitations Forestières Africaines. The main products were initially

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...

and ivory, gradually supplemented by

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

s, particularly

okoumé ''Aucoumea klaineana'' (angouma, gaboon, or okoumé) is a tree in the family Burseraceae, native to equatorial west Africa in Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, and Río Muni. It is a large hardwood tree growing to tall, rarely larger, with a ...

for

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

The town was named after the French colonial administrator Émile Gentil in 1900. After World War I it became a port for

, but it grew rapidly only after Elf began oil exploration in the area. It received its first bank branch when

Bank of West Africa Bank of British West Africa (BBWA) was a British Overseas bank that was important in introducing modern banking into the countries that emerged from the UK's West African colonies. In 1957 it changed its name to Bank of West Africa, and in 1965 wa ...

(BAO) opened a branch there in 1928. A 1947 population of 4,500 grew to 21,000 by 1960. An

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

was established by SOGARA in the 1960s, with

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

added in 1968. The town is now known for its

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

s and its nightlife, while attractions include the

St Louis Church ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy ...

(built in 1927), a

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological g ...

, a

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shel ...

es and a

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

, as well as the

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

in local

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

City districts

The city centre lies next to the harbour on the Port-Gentil Bay seaside. Hotels, banks, shops, and supermarkets (such as the Casino and Cecado brands) are found within the downtown area between the Avenue Savorgnan de Brazzaville and the seaside. The area also concentrates a residential compound for foreign workforce. In the southern part, the

BEAC The Bank of Central African States (french: Banque des États de l'Afrique Centrale, BEAC) is a central bank that serves six central African countries which form the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa: *Cameroon *Central African ...

building lies next to the port. The western Atlantic seaside is scarcely populated, mainly due to the presence of strong winds and sea currents. As is the case with other cities in Gabon, the authorities have not yet implemented house numbering in Port-Gentil, and the use of postal boxes is common.

Climate

The Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies Port-Gentil's climate as tropical wet and dry (Aw). Despite the fact that the city lies in close proximity to the equator, Port-Gentil experiences noticeably warmer and cooler periods of the year with average temperatures in July (the city's coolest month) hovering at around and average temperatures in February and March (the city's warmest months) at around . Port-Gentil features a lengthy

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

that runs from October through May and a relatively short

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

that covers the remaining four months. The city receives roughly of precipitation annually. The highest recorded temperature was on 26 February 2016; the lowest recorded temperature was on 1 August 1953.

Transportation

Port Gentil is technically on an island, and no bridge connects it to the mainland. The limited number of paved roads within the city are also poorly maintained. The roads are paved in the inner city up to the outskirts of the new residential districts in N'Tchengue, where sandy paths with frequent potholes prevail. Traffic jams are common in road junctions such as the Carrefour Tobia or Léon Mba, close to the downtown area. There are plenty of shared taxi services for which the price of a drive is negotiable, starting usually at 400 CFA Francs. The taxi fare usually doubles for night drives. A premium price (doubled fare) is requested for passengers travelling beyond paved roads, given the hardships of the road, lack or non existence of illuminated roads at night, or pedestrians randomly walking on the road. Most of the cars are obsolete given the prohibitively high cost of new imported cars. Furthermore, the lack of local car spareparts manufacturers underscores the need to import such parts from as far as Europe, the increased price as well as the lengthy delivery duration penalize altogether the traffic. The city has an airport, Port-Gentil International Airport, serving as the main channel of transportation with the world. Regular flights connect it with

Libreville Libreville is the capital and largest city of Gabon. Occupying in the northwestern province of Estuaire, Libreville is a port on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea. As of the 2013 census, its population was 703,904. The area has been inh ...

, capital of

Healthcare

Hospitals within Port-Gentil include:
* Clinique Mandji, located in the Littoral district on the Route de la Sobraga,
* Clinique du Littoral, located on the Boulevard du Gouverneur Pélieu,
* Centre du Traitement Ambulatoire on the road to N'Tchengue.

Education

Schools include: * École Mixte Port-Gentil or École publique conventionnée de Port-Gentil * École primaire Léopold Sédar Senghor (French primary school) * Lycée Français Victor Hugo de Port-Gentil (French secondary school)

Places of worship

Among the places of worship, they are predominantly

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

churches and temples : Roman Catholic Diocese of Port-Gentil (

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Assemblies of God The Assemblies of God (AG), officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 144 autonomous self-governing national groupings of churches that together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination."Assemblies of God". ...

, Evangelical Church of Gabon.Britannica
Gabon
britannica.com, USA, accessed on July 7, 2019 There are also

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

mosques.

Notable residents

* Stéphane Lasme, professional basketball player *

Alexander N'Doumbou Qian Jiegei (; born 4 January 1992), born in Gabon as Alexander N'Doumbou, is a professional footballer who plays for Chinese Super League club Zhejiang. He formerly represented the Gabon national football team. Club career N'Doumbou began his ...

, professional footballer

Gallery

File:POG-Street 1.jpg, Main street File:POG-Street 3.jpg, Street File:PORTGENTIL2.JPG, Beach File:PORTGENTIL1.JPG, Fiftieth anniversary monument

References

Sources

* David E. Gardinier, ''Historical Dictionary of Gabon'', 2nd ed. (The Scarecrow Press, 1994) p. 275–276
Port Gentil - the world's most expensive city, Time Magazine online, Mar 16 2007
{{Authority control Populated places in Ogooué-Maritime Province Ogooué River French Equatorial Africa Port cities and towns in Gabon Ports and harbours of Gabon