| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
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| Douala |
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(d -ä´l ) (KEY) , city (1991 est. pop. 1,604,500), Cameroon, on the Wuori River estuary. Cameroon’s largest city and major port, it is a commercial and transportation center handling most of the country’s exports (chiefly cocoa and coffee) as well as transit trade from Chad. Douala developed as a center of the slave trade after the Portuguese arrived in 1472. It later became part of a German protectorate (1884) and of the French Cameroons (1919). |
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| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
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