City (pop., 1999 est.: urban agglomeration, 1,999,000), capital of Senegal.
One of the chief seaports on the western African coast, it lies midway between the mouths of the Gambia and Senegal rivers. Founded by the French in 1857, its development was spurred by the opening in 1885 of western Africa's first railway, from Saint-Louis to Dakar. In 1902 it became the capital of French West Africa and, in 1960, of Senegal. Dakar is one of tropical Africa's leading industrial and service centres. There are museums of ethnography and archaeology there and museums of the sea and of history in nearby Gorée.