FRENCH WEST AFRICA

a vast region belonging to France, and comprising Senegal, the Colony of the Niger, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, the Upper Volta Colony. the territory of Mauri tan i a, French Sudan, Dakar and dependencies and Dahomey. Upper Volta ceased to be a colony in 1933. Its area and population were divided as follows: 27,290 sq. miles and 268,239 inhabitants were added to Niger; 59,219 sq. miles and 2,018,837 inhabitants to the Ivory Coast; and 20,226 sq. miles and 713,167 inhabitants to French Sudan. It extends from the Atlantic to Lake Chad, where it meets the hinterland of the French Congo. The limits of French influence have been partly defined by conventions arranged with Great Britain in 1890, 1898, 1904- and 1906. The delineation See 584 FRENSHAM of the boundary was cumpleted in 1912, and approved by the French and British Governments in 1914. The whole is under a Governor-General, whose seat is the rising port of Dakar, connected by railway with St. Louis. In the interior are Kayes, Bafulabé, and Bammaku (connected by a railway), Timbuktu, and Jenné. Area, 1,799,039 sq. miles; pop. (1931), 14,575,973. See articles on the various colonies, and TO GO LAND.