Country Guide

The Republic of Cameroon is a central African country about the size of France, situated between 2° and 12° N. It has a short coastline on the Gulf of Guinea but has land borders with Nigeria on the west, with Chad on the north, with the Central African Republic on the east, and with Congo and Gabon on the south.

The climate and weather of the northern part of the country are similar to those described for northern Nigeria and for Chad. There is a single wet season between April and September at the time of high sun and a pronounced dry season during the rest of the year. Annual rainfall is between 1,000 mm/40 in and 1,750 mm/70 in.

In the south of the country rainfall occurs in all months with an equatorial pattern of distribution: two wet seasons and two dry seasons, similar to that described in the more detailed account of this region for the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The table for Yaoundé is typical of the southern part of the country. That for Douala, on the coast, shows the much heavier annual rainfall here and the particularly wet period between June and September. This is a consequence of the exposure to the moist southwesterly winds of the Guinea monsoon which are uplifted as they strike the high mountain of the Cameroon Peak.

A small area of the Peak is one of the three places in the world experiencing an average annual rainfall in excess of 10,000 mm/400 in! The other places are in the Hawaiian Islands and Assam in India.