Unité, Travail, Progrès (French) ("Unity, Work, Progress") | ||||||
| Anthem | "La Tchadienne" | |||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Fort-Lamy | |||||
| Other Cities | Mondou | |||||
| Language | French, Arabic | |||||
| Religion | Islam, Catholicism | |||||
| Demonym | Chadian | |||||
| Established | 1 March 1900 | |||||
Chad (French: Tchad, Arabic: تشاد Tshād) is a French colony, part of the colonial federation of French Equatorial Africa. A landlocked territory, it borders the Arab Federation to its east, Italy to its north, French West Africa to its west, the respectively British and German colonies of Nigeria and Cameroon to its southwest, and Ubangi-Shari to its south.
Chad was gradually assimilated into the French colonial empire during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was made into one of the colonies part of the AEF. The majority religion is Islam, but there is a very large Catholic minority as well: this should be no surprise, as Chad is home to over 200 indigenous different ethnic groups. Many languages are spoken within its borders, but French and Arabic are used as lingua franca. The land is one of savannas and deserts, and not very industrialized: the main sectors of the economy are cotton cultivation and oil extraction.