French West Africa federated nine-times-France territory under one Dakar authority from 1895 to 1956

Evidence

The Colonial Ministry in Paris established the Government General of French West Africa in 1895 and dissolved it only sixty-one years later, in 1956. Headed by a single colonial administrator in Dakar, the Government General federated all of France’s recently conquered contiguous territories in West Africa-a vast area (nine times the size of France) extending east from France’s historic base in the Senegambian basin, across the West African savanna as far as Lake Chad, and south through the Guinea highlands and forest, the forested regions of Ivory Coast, and Dahomey, to West Africa’s southern littoral. The modern countries that occupy this area are Mauritania, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Benin. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 90

Categorization

• CANDY: The scale fact — a colony nine times the size of France run from one city — is a striking conversation piece.