Franceville

Franceville sits on the upper Ogooué in the southeast, founded as a settlement for freed slaves in 1880 and now the region's main city and the terminus of the Trans-Gabon railway. A large biomedical research institute operates there, and the uranium mines at nearby Mounana produced one of the strangest scientific findings of the twentieth century when the ore at Oklo turned out to have sustained natural nuclear fission around two billion years ago.

Background

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza founded the town on 13 June 1880 on the site of a village called Masuku. It was meant as a home for Africans freed from slavery on the coast by Brazza and his party, and he named it Francheville, a free town. People have lived in the upper Ogooué valley for at least two millennia. The brick Saint-Hilaire church, put up in 1899, is among the oldest buildings still standing in the upper Ogooué. The 2013 census counted 110,568 residents, making it Gabon's third-largest commune. The Université des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku is based here, as is the CIRMF, a biomedical institute known for its work on Ebola.

Source: Wikipedia, "Franceville"

What you'll find

• The railway terminus - the eastern end of the Trans-Gabon line.
• The Ogooué - the river the city sits on in its upper reaches.
• The research institute - the biomedical centre based in the city.
• The Oklo connection - the nearby ore body that sustained natural fission two billion years ago.

When to go

June to September is the long dry season. The rains from October are heavy. The city is hot and humid year round.

Before you go

The city has little in the way of sights and works mainly as a base. The Oklo site itself is a working mine area and not open to visitors. Facilities are limited and expensive.

Nearby

Poubara is upstream, and Lékédi Park is south.

Key facts