Capital of
Cameroon, 210 km/130 mi east of the port of Douala; population (2001 est) 1,248,200. The city is the commercial centre of an area of cultivation of bananas, coffee, and cacao, and of gold and titanium mining. Industries include tourism, oil refining, food production, and soap and textile manufacture. It is linked by the Transcameroon railway to Douala and to Ngaoundere in the north.
Established by the Germans as a military port in 1899, it became capital of French Cameroon in 1921.
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