Kumba

Kumba is a city in the Southwest Province of Cameroon. It is also known around as K town in Cameroon. It had a population of 144,268 (at the 2005 Census). The N8 and N16 highways meet at Kumba.

The city is a trade centre for cacao and oil palms, and has a timber industry as well. Kumba, is a local road junction, making it one of the main commercial towns in anglophone Cameroon. Trading in Kumba has attracted the interest of foreigners, mostly Nigerians (The Igbos), who have always controlled a greater percentage of the Kumba main market.

Although it is the largest city in the southwest province of Cameroon, it is not the provincial capital. Because of its size, most major roads to the provincial interior pass through Kumba, running to the Nigerian border at Mamfe, the Korup National Park at Mundemba, and Mount Koupe to the east. The premier geographical attraction in Kumba is Barombi Mbo, a large crater lake located two kilometers northwest of Kumba's city center.

Local politics have been divided between a government-appointed mayor and a local chief, called Mukete. There has been something like power struggle between the two in recent years, which has occasionally spilled over into local violence.

Most people speak English, French or Pidgin, and at least one of a variety of indigenous languages including Bafaw or Bakossi.

The indigenes of Kumba are the Bafaw, an ethnic group that speak the Bafaw language, a language similar to Douala’s, Mboh and Bakossi, and certainly Southern Bantoid. The Bafaw people are ruled by their Paramount chief Victor Esemisongo Mukete who is the current chairman of Camtel, Cameroon's own Telecommunication company and also the founder and CEO of Mukete Plantations Limited, a plantation measuring over 200 square kilometers in different localities in Meme division. Due to its cosmopolitan nature, the Bafaw now form just a percentage of the general population of the city, and have lost many aspects of their culture, except for their language which is spoken mostly by the elderly and some of the younger generation.

Kumba is the birthplace of French international rugby union player Serge Betsen and footballer Eyong Enoh.

Location on the Map