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The city of Dakar formed around a French fort, and it replaced Saint-Louis as the capital of French West Africa in 1902. It was the capital of the short-lived Mali federation from 1959 to 1960, after which it became the capital of Senegal.

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Dakar was a major center of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. More enslaved Africans were shipped through Dakar to the Western Hemisphere (including South AmericaSouth America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. South America is situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It became attached to North America only recently, geologically speaking, wi, the American coloniesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in, and the CaribbeanThe Caribbean or the West Indies is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. These islands curve southward from the bottom tip of Florida to the Northwest of Venezuela in South America. There are at least 7000 islands, islets, reefs and cayes in the regio) than any other single port in Africa. The Fort D'Estrees on Goree Island, where slaves were held, auctioned, and packed onto ships, was restored by the Senegalese government in the 20th century and transformed into a museum.

Dakar is also the finishing point of the Paris Dakar RallyThe Paris Dakar Rally (or The Dakar ) is an annual, organized, professional off-road race. The race is currently sponsored by Total and organized by TSO, the Thierry Sabine Organization. Despite its name, it is an off-road endurance race rather than a con.