Destination

This city has only been the capital since 1941.

Bissau was founded in 1687 as a Portuguese trading post, but for centuries it was not the principal town: the seat was at Bolama, on an island in the archipelago. The move to the mainland came in 1941, and since then this city of 492,004 people, at sea level on the Geba estuary, has been the capital of a country that became independent in 1974.

MRMaría ReyesDestinations editor
· 9 min read
The city seen above the treetops on an overcast day: the lower two thirds of the frame are an unbroken mass of intensely green foliage, with mangoes, palms and climbers hiding the ground completely; between the crowns and towards the back appear the orange-tiled and sheet-metal roofs of a district of low houses, the odd façade painted green and yellow, a raised water tank and an aerial; above it all, a band of uniform white sky, without sun, with a thread of smoke rising between the houses.
The city seen above the treetops on an overcast day: the lower two thirds of the frame are an unbroken mass of intensely green foliage, with mangoes, palms and climbers hiding the ground completely; between the crowns and towards the back appear the orange-tiled and sheet-metal roofs of a district of low houses, the odd façade painted green and yellow, a raised water tank and an aerial; above it all, a band of uniform white sky, without sun, with a thread of smoke rising between the houses.Bnhamadjo·CC BY-SA 3.0

01 Two hundred and fifty years without being capital

That detail changes how you read the city. What you expect of a capital — the administrative ensemble, the ceremonial avenues, the accumulated institutions of several centuries — does not exist here, because for almost all of its history Bissau was something else: a trading port on an estuary, not a seat of government.

And it also explains the country's other oddity: that the previous capital is still standing, on an island, with its layout and its administrative buildings built for a function it lost more than eighty years ago. Guinea-Bissau has two capitals, one in use and one halted, and a few hours by boat separate them.

A dual carriageway seen from the verge, the roadway almost empty: an old-looking blue and white taxi runs along the left-hand lane and, beyond it, three or four small cars; on the left, a line of slim white street lights topped with solar panels recedes along the median; on the right, a metal crash barrier separates the tarmac from a bank of reddish earth and grass; at the back, beyond a band of low vegetation, a long line of single-storey houses with pale roofs can be made out; the sky, filling two thirds of the frame, is packed with white cumulus piled against an intense blue.
One of the approach roads into the city, with solar street lights. Bissau is a recent capital and its infrastructure is recent too.Laércia Valeriana Insali / Wikimedia Commons / CC0  · CC0

02 A city at zero metres

The site is among the lowest you will find for a capital: zero metres above sea level. The city spreads along the bank of the Geba estuary, a short way from the Atlantic, on flat ground where fresh and salt water mix and the tide comes in and out several times a day.

That zero elevation shows in the urban landscape. The city is low, very green, with the trees gaining ground on the buildings: from any high point what you see is not a skyline but a mass of crowns with roofs showing between them. At 492,004 inhabitants in the 2015 census, there is no density forcing anyone to build upwards either.

A colour satellite image of the estuary and the archipelago: in the right half, the mainland appears as an intense green mass threaded by a dense network of black mangrove creeks branching like veins; through the centre, a very broad river enters from the right edge and opens seawards in bands of pale sediment-laden water; in the left and lower half, some twenty green islands with irregular outlines float on deep blue, separated by channels and ringed by very pale grey sandbanks visible through the water.
The Geba estuary and the archipelago from orbit. The city is on the river bank; the previous capital, on one of those islands.Pierre Markuse / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0  · CC BY 2.0

03 The estuary and the islands

What really organises this country is not the city but the water. The coast is broken into estuaries, channels and mangroves, and off it spreads the Bijagós archipelago, eighty-eight irregular islands separated by shallow arms of sea.

Bissau works as the knot in that network: it is the main port and the point you set out from towards the islands. And that position is exactly why the capital was transferred to it in 1941. Bolama was in the archipelago; Bissau was on the mainland, with a port and a land connection to the interior.

A very wide panorama of a low island seen from the water: in the foreground, the lower half of the frame is a greyish-green sea, smooth and almost without swell; across the centre stretches the island's shore, with a narrow band of pale sand and some blocks of dark rock at the water's edge; above it grows a continuous, very dense mass of palms and tropical trees with rounded crowns, all the same dark green, without a single visible building; the sky above is a uniform white band, without defined cloud.
One island of the archipelago seen from another. The country's previous capital, Bolama, is in this same group of islands.Mooonswimmer / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0  · CC BY-SA 4.0

04 How to visit it

In a couple of days, without forcing it. The Portuguese old quarter, the port area and the central market can be walked unhurriedly in one long morning; the rest of the city is residential and very spread out. There is no monumental ensemble to justify more time, and it is worth knowing that before booking.

The second thing is to allow for the state of the city. Bissau is a poor capital, with scant infrastructure and practically no organised tourism. Guinea-Bissau receives very few travellers and you feel it in every arrangement: almost everything is solved by asking, in Portuguese or in Creole.

And the third is to understand it for what it is: the starting point. The boats to the archipelago leave from here, and that is where what brings most arrivals to the country actually is. The city is not the destination; it is where the trip begins, and its history as a late capital explains why it looks so little like one.

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Last updated · reviewed by the FlowTravel desk
MR

María Reyes

Destinations editor · Flowtravel

María looks in every city for the decision that explains its shape.

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Image credits
  • CoverBnhamadjo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0Source
  • BodyLaércia Valeriana Insali / Wikimedia Commons / CC0Source  ·  CC0
  • BodyPierre Markuse / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0Source  ·  CC BY 2.0
  • BodyMooonswimmer / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0Source  ·  CC BY-SA 4.0