Yaoundé in the context of "Central African CFA franc"

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both geostrategic locations. Cameroon's population of nearly 31 million people speak 250 native languages, in addition to the national tongues of English and French. The capital city of the country is Yaoundé.

Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established powerful chiefdoms and fondoms.

African French (French: français africain) is the umbrella grouping of varieties of the French language spoken throughout Francophone Africa. Used mainly as a secondary language or lingua franca, it is spoken by an estimated 320 million people across 34 countries and territories, some of which are not Francophone, but merely members or observers of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Of these, 19 sovereign states recognize it as an official de jure language, though it is not the native tongue of the majority. According to Ethnologue, only 1,2 million people spoke it as a first language. African French speakers represent 67% of the Francophonie, making Africa the continent with the most French speakers in the world.

In Africa, French is often spoken as a second language alongside the Indigenous ones, but in a small number of urban areas (in particular in Central Africa and in the ports located on the Gulf of Guinea) it has become a first language, such as in the region of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the urban areas of Douala, Yaoundé in Cameroon, in Libreville, Gabon, and Antananarivo.

Lake Nyos (/ˈniːoʊs/ NEE-ohs) is a crater lake in the Northwest Region of Cameroon, located about 315 km (196 mi) northwest of Yaoundé, the capital. Nyos is a deep lake high on the flank of an inactive volcano in the Oku volcanic plain along the Cameroon line of volcanic activity. A volcanic dam impounds the lake waters.

A pocket of magma lies beneath the lake and leaks carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the water, changing it into carbonic acid. Nyos is one of only three lakes known to be saturated with carbon dioxide in this way, and therefore prone to limnic eruptions (the others being Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, and Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda).

African French (French: français africain) is the umbrella grouping of varieties of the French language spoken throughout Francophone Africa. Used mainly as a secondary language or lingua franca, it is spoken by an estimated 167 million people across 34 countries and territories, some of which are not Francophone, but merely members or observers of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Of these, 20 sovereign states recognize it as an official de jure language, though it is not the native tongue of the majority. According to Ethnologue, only 1,2 million people spoke it as a first language. African French speakers represent 47% of the Francophonie, making Africa the continent with the most French speakers in the world.

In Africa, French is often spoken as a second language alongside the Indigenous ones, but in a small number of urban areas (in particular in Central Africa and in the ports located on the Gulf of Guinea) it has become a first language, such as in the region of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the urban areas of Douala, Yaoundé in Cameroon, in Libreville, Gabon, and Antananarivo.

The Centre Region (French: région du Centre) occupies 69,000 km of the central plains of the Republic of Cameroon. It is bordered to the north by the Adamawa Region, to the south by the South Region, to the east by the East Region, and to the West by the Littoral and West Regions. It is the second largest (after East Region) of Cameroon's regions in land area. Major ethnic groups include the Bassa, Ewondo, and Vute.

Yaoundé, capital of Cameroon, is at the heart of the Centre, drawing people from the rest of the country to live and work there. The Centre's towns are also important industrial centres, especially for timber. Agriculture is another important economic factor, especially with regard to the province's most important cash crop, cocoa. Outside of the capital and the plantation zones, most inhabitants are sustenance farmers.