Welcome to Libreville, the capital and largest city of Gabon, a port on the Gabon Estuary near the Gulf of Guinea. The Mpongwe people lived here long before the French acquired the land in 1839. The area later became an American Christian mission and a settlement for freed slaves, and then the chief port of French Equatorial Africa. At independence in 1960 it was a modest trading post of 32,000 people, but it has grown so quickly that it is now home to a third of the nation. From mangrove parks to the presidential palace, let's explore.
Pongara National Park
Photo: Staff Sgt. Ryan Nikzad · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsAcross the estuary from the city lies Pongara National Park, stretching along the southern shore of the Gabon Estuary and the Atlantic. Its forests take many forms: mangroves, swamp forest, riverside woodland and forest that floods with the seasons, plus a long strip of sandy beach and patches of grassy savanna. The mangroves help stabilise the shore and slow the flow of water. People have lived here since at least the Neolithic era, and elephants, gorillas and monkeys roam the park.
Akanda National Park
Just north of Libreville is Akanda National Park, one of 13 national parks Gabon created in 2002 to represent the country's biodiversity. It is a world of mangroves and tidal beaches along the Mondah and Corisco bays. Here is a striking fact: Gabon holds only 2.5 percent of Africa's mangrove swamps, yet Akanda and Pongara together contain a quarter of all protected mangroves on the continent. The bays teem with marine life, turtles feed here, and the park is internationally important for migratory birds.
Palais du bord de mer
On the waterfront stands the Palais du bord de mer, the Seaside Palace, official residence of the president of Gabon. Commissioned by President Omar Bongo and designed by the Lebanese-Ivorian architect Pierre Fakhoury, it was completed in 1977, when many considered it costly and extravagant. The palace has witnessed major moments in the nation's history: Omar Bongo's body lay in state here in 2009, and in August 2023 a coup d'état was announced from within its walls.
Mont-Bouët
Photo: Estrella230 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsWe finish in the lively Mont-Bouët market, widely described as the largest market in Gabon and the commercial heart of the capital. Food, textiles and goods of every kind change hands here. The market takes its name from the surrounding district, named after the French admiral Édouard Bouët-Willaumez, who founded Libreville in 1849. Operating since the early 1970s, it has grown into a sprawling complex of several thousand traders, from Gabon, West Africa, Lebanon, Mauritania, China and Korea.
Lomakuume
