Entre la centralité et la complémentarité: Les systèmes et sous-systèmes portuaires en Afrique Occidentale (1885-1914)

Abstract

Seaports in West Africa introduced these regions into the global economy in the last third of the nineteenth century. They served as gateways for trade and such coaling stations to support the European expansion towards the interior, where the cash-crop culture and mining sectors were developed. The evolution on the field of transport technologies increased the importance of these nodes which focused the economic activity along the coast. These nodes constituted a port network which was interconnected in different scales. Hence, this port network was characterized by hierarchies, complementarities and centralities among the different ports, having different port functions which were integrated into the system. In this paper, we propose a methodological approximation in order to analyse le functioning of this port network. The main ports reviewed in this paper are Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands), Dakar, Gorée, St.Louis and Rufisque (Senegal), Mindelo (Cape Verde).