French Cameroon, or Cameroun, was the French-ruled eastern portion of Germany's former colony of Kamerun, administered by France from 1916 first under a League of Nations mandate and later as a United Nations trust territory. Governed from Yaoundé, it became independent on 1 January 1960 as the Republic of Cameroon, after a bitter conflict with the nationalist Union of the Peoples of Cameroon. Our maps call it the French Cameroons.
From Kamerun to mandate
Germany had claimed the coast around Douala in 1884 through treaties with local chiefs, including Ndumbe Lobe Bell, and pushed steadily inland; in 1911 it gained further land from France after the Agadir Crisis. During World War I British and French forces occupied Kamerun, and on 20 July 1916 they divided it. In 1922 the League of Nations confirmed the arrangement, with France taking the east and Britain the western lands it administered as Northern and Southern Cameroons.
French rule between the wars
Rather than merging the territory into French Equatorial Africa, France ran it as a separate commissariat. It set out to erase the German legacy, imposing French law and teaching French across the territory, while tolerating customary law but keeping the courts and police in its own hands. The colonial health service fought sleeping sickness, with Eugène Jamot leading research. Leading Africans were drawn into the French system: Charles Atangana, made paramount chief by the Germans, visited the Paris Colonial Exhibition of 1931. Racism in colonial society also bred resentment, and anti-French feeling grew.
The Second World War
In 1940, early in World War II, the territory rallied to Free France. Troops under Philippe Leclerc took Douala on 27 August and moved on to Yaoundé, where the governor loyal to Vichy surrendered.
Trust territory and reform
After the war Cameroun became a UN trust territory within the French Union. It had about three million inhabitants. Officials pushed each region towards a single export crop, cotton in the north, cocoa in the south and coffee in the west, and new roads opened the forests to logging. A representative assembly was created in 1946 and became the Territorial Assembly in 1952; Cameroonians such as Alexandre Douala Manga Bell sat in the French National Assembly.
The Union of the Peoples of Cameroon
Founded in 1948, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) under Ruben Um Nyobé demanded independence and the reunification of the French and British territories. The governor banned it on 13 July 1955, and Um Nyobé led a guerrilla war from hiding. France granted internal self-government in 1956, with a Cameroonian prime minister from 1957 and Ahmadou Ahidjo in that post from 1958, but the new government refused to legalise the UPC. Um Nyobé was killed by French troops on 13 September 1958, and his successor Félix-Roland Moumié was murdered in Geneva in 1960, a killing attributed to the French secret service. Estimates of the dead in the war run to several tens of thousands, most of them after independence, with abuses recorded on all sides.
Independence
French Cameroon gained independence on 1 January 1960 as the Republic of Cameroon. After a plebiscite in February 1961 Southern Cameroons, the British-run south, joined it on 1 October 1961 to form a federal republic, while the northern part chose Nigeria. The UPC insurgency was not finally crushed until the early 1970s. The territory's borders form most of today's Cameroon.
On our maps
Our 1920, 1930 and 1938 maps show the French Cameroons, with the British-administered Cameroons to the west and French Equatorial Africa to the east and south-east.
From the atlas
French Cameroon on our maps
Borders of Time draws French Cameroon on 3 of its 54 world maps, from 1920 CE to 1938 CE. Its largest extent is on the 1920 CE map, covering about 463,000 km² (179,000 sq mi), roughly the size of Spain today.
On that map it borders French Equatorial Africa.
On the map before it appears (1914 CE), the same area belongs to Kamerun. On the map after its last appearance (1945 CE), it belongs to Cameroon.
- 1920 CE463,000 km²
- 1930 CE463,000 km²
- 1938 CE463,000 km²
Measured from the historical-basemaps snapshots this atlas uses. Borders in those maps are approximate, especially for early periods.
Quick answers
- When did French Cameroon exist?
- From 1919 to 1960, 41 years. The atlas draws it on its maps from 1920 to 1938.
- Where was French Cameroon?
- At its largest, on the 1920 map, its land lies in today’s Cameroon (100%). On that map it borders French Equatorial Africa.
- What was the capital of French Cameroon?
- Yaoundé.
- How big was French Cameroon?
- French Cameroon was largest on the 1920 map, at about 463,000 km² (179,000 sq mi).