🇹🇩 Chad
N'Djamena
N'Djamena is the capital of Chad — a landlocked Sahelian nation of extraordinary geographical diversity, from the Sahara's Ennedi Plateau in the north to the shrinking Lake Chad in the west, where four nations meet and where the world's most ambitious wetland restoration project is underway. The city itself straddles the confluence of the Chari and Logone rivers, with Cameroon visible on the opposite bank, and is a genuinely African Sahelian capital where camels and motorcycle-taxis share the unpaved streets of the Moursal and Farcha quarters, French colonial administration buildings stand beside new Chinese-built government complexes and the central market sells everything from Tuareg silver and camel saddles to Nigerian electronics and dried Lake Chad fish. N'Djamena was heavily damaged in fighting in 2006 and 2008 but has been rebuilding — the Grand Marché, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (modelled on Notre-Dame de Paris) and the National Museum of Chad are functioning and worth visiting. For travellers who reach it, N'Djamena is a gateway to some of the most remote and spectacular landscapes on Earth: the Saharan rock art of the Ennedi Plateau, the elephant herds of Zakouma National Park and the extraordinary desert architecture of the Tibesti volcanoes.