Africa's smallest mainland capital — river breezes, afra grills and Atlantic sunsets
Banjul is the compact colonial capital of the Gambia, the smallest mainland country in Africa, wrapped around the mouth of the Gambia River where Atlantic trade winds keep the air moving year-round. The city retains its crumbling 19th-century British architecture — the Albert Market, the arch on Independence Drive, the Victorian-era streets of Battery Point — and the night-time street food scene along the waterfront is one of the most underrated in West Africa. Afra (grilled beef marinated in onion and pepper), benachin (the Wolof one-pot rice dish that became jollof rice), and Julbrew (Gambi…
The Gambia takes its shape from the Gambia River — the territory was drawn as a colonial corridor on either side of the river, hemmed in by Senegal on all sides, because the river was what Britain and France were both after as a trade route into West Africa. Banjul (then Bathurst) was founded in 1816 by British forces on a small island at the river mouth as a base to suppress the slave trade. After independence in 1965 it became the Gambia's capital and was renamed from Bathurst to Banjul in 1973. The country's history took a dark turn under dictator Yahya Jammeh (1994–2017), who was finally…