Senegal is the African country that contains Gorée Island, the historic island off Dakar.
Gorée lies about 3 kilometres from Senegal’s capital, Dakar, in the Atlantic Ocean. European powers used the island as a trading post from the fifteenth century onward, and it later came under French control. Its buildings reflect several centuries of colonial activity and Atlantic commerce.
The House of Slaves, built in the eighteenth century, is the island’s best-known site. It is associated with the history and memory of the transatlantic slave trade, although historians continue to examine the precise scale and role of Gorée within that trade. UNESCO inscribed Gorée Island as a World Heritage Site in 1978. The island is sometimes described as being in Dakar, but administratively and nationally it is part of Senegal.