N’Djamena is the capital and largest city of Chad, a landlocked nation in Central Africa.
Founded as Fort-Lamy by French colonial forces in 1900, the settlement occupied a strategic position at the confluence of the Chari and Logone rivers, near the borders with Cameroon and Nigeria. The city was renamed N’Djamena in 1973, seven years after independence, to reflect Chadian rather than colonial identity. It has since evolved from a modest trading post into Chad’s political and economic centre, operating under a special administrative status divided into ten arrondissements. The semi-arid landscape around the city is hot and largely flat, with the rivers providing essential water for agriculture and daily life. N’Djamena sits across the Chari from Kousséri in Cameroon, forming a cross-border urban area. Meat, fish and cotton processing anchor the local economy, and the city functions as a regional market for livestock, salt, dates and grains, its river port sustaining trade networks that reach across the Lake Chad basin.
