Villages of Senegal

The Villages of Senegal are the lowest level administrative division of Senegal. They are constituted "by the grouping of several families or carrés in a single agglomeration.".

Villages are grouped together in rural communities. They are administered by an individual entitled village chief (French: chef du village).

At the time of the 1988 census there were 13,544 villages in Senegal. In 2013, there were 14,958

Archaeological investigation undertaken in Senegal has established that animal husbandry ad agriculture were practived in Senegal from the 2nd millennium BC. From that time more or less permanent groupings of habitations (that is to say, villages) have existed. The most studied are the ancient villages of the middle reaches of the Senegal River. Some sites, like Cubalel, were occupied throughout the 1st millennium CE.

Some written sources (Arabic and Portuguese), as well as information from the oral tradition, clarify the history of some individual villages, but much remains unknown.

The villages were long governed by customary law, incarnated in the village chiefs. The prerogatives of these chiefs were reduced as a result of French colonisation, which installed a new administrative structure, which was highly centralised and hierarchical. The village chief became the lowest layer of a pyramid headed by the Ministry of Overseas France, whose authority was exercised by the Governor General of French West Africa, the governor of Senegal, the heads of the regions and smaller areas (commandants of cercles and canton chiefs). Although their appointment had to be ratified by the governor, the village chiefs were not officially part of the colonial administration (hence their ambiguous position) but they were de facto responsible for the smooth running of their village. The census, the collection of taxes, and the transmission of information were part of their role.

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