Boké is the capital city of

Boké Prefecture Boké is a prefecture located in the Boké Region of Guinea. The capital is Boké. The prefecture covers an area of 11,124 km2 and has a population of 449,405. It contains several economically important areas of the country, including those e ...

within the

Boké Region Boké Region () is located in western Guinea. It is bordered by the countries of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and the Guinean regions of Kindia and Labé. Its capital is the city of Boké. Administrative divisions Boké Region is divided into ...

Lower Guinea Lower Guinea may refer to: * Maritime Guinea, the coastal region of the republic of Guinea. * in biogeography, a region of coastal tropical forests stretching along the Gulf of Guinea, from Ghana through Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and Cameroon. It is sep ...

near the border with

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, its north and Guinea to Guinea–Guinea-Bissau b ...

. It is also a sub-prefecture of Guinea. Located along the

Rio Nuñez Nunez River or Rio Nuñez (Kakandé) is a river in Guinea with its source in the Futa Jallon highlands. It is also known as the Tinguilinta River, after a village along its upper course. Geography Lying between the to the north and the Pongo R ...

which flows to its not-too-distant mouth on the Atlantic Ocean, Boké is a port. It is known for the

Boké Museum The Boké Prefectural Museum (French: ''Musée Préfectoral de Boké'') is a regional museum located in Boké Prefecture, in the Boké Region of Guinea. Inaugurated in 1982, it is housed in a small fort constructed in 1878. History Prior to be ...

, formerly a

slave fort A slave fort or slave castle was a fortification designed to provide a defensible area in which enslaved victims would be kept until ships were ready to embark them and forcibly migrate them during the atlantic slave trade. A slave fort was a milit ...

. The town is served by Boké Baralande Airport. As of 2014 the city and surrounding sub-prefecture had a population of 61,449 people.

History

According to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 11th edition:

This part of the Guinea coast was made known by the Portuguese voyagers of the 15th century. In consequence, largely, of the dangers attending its navigation, it was not visited by the European traders of the 16th-18th centuries so frequently as other regions north and east, but in the Rio Pongo, at
Matakong Matakong is an island just off the coast of Guinea between the capital Conakry and the Sierra Leone border. Nomenclature Matakong is also called Matakan. Transport Matakong is the proposed port terminus of the heavy duty standard gauge Tra ...
(a diminutive island near the mouth of the Forekaria), and elsewhere, ''slave traders'' established themselves, and ruins of the strongholds they built and defended with cannon, still exist ''(e.g., Fortin de Boké)''. When driven from other parts of Guinea the slavers made this difficult and little known coast one of their last resorts, and many ''barracoons'' were built in the late years of the 18th century. It was not until after the restoration of Goree to her at the close of the Napoleonic wars that France evinced any marked interest in the region. At that time the British, from their bases at the Gambia and Sierra Leone, were devoting considerable attention to these Rivières du Sud (''i.e,'' south of Senegal) and also to the Futa Jallon.
René Caillié Auguste René Caillié (; 19 November 1799 – 17 May 1838) was a French explorer and the first European to return alive from the town of Timbuktu. Caillié had been preceded at Timbuktu by a British officer, Alexander Gordon Laing, Major Gordon ...
, who started his journey to
Timbuktu Timbuktu ( ; ; Koyra Chiini: ; ) is an ancient city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. It is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali, having a population of 32,460 in the 2018 census. ...
in 1827, did much to quicken French interest in the district, and from 1838 onward French naval officers, Bouèt-Willaumez and his successors, made detailed studies of the coast.

By 1849, the French had caused so much local resentment that France had to take over the Boké area. By 1895, it had become part of French West Africa.

Climate

Boké has a

tropical savanna climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry "winter") and ''As'' (for a dry "summer"). The driest month has less than ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Aw'').

References

Notes

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boke Sub-prefectures of the Boké Region Ports and harbours of Guinea