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Rang

Island town of ochre balconies

Saint-Louis

A colonial island town at the mouth of the Senegal river, with ochre houses and brightly painted fishing boats.

Ile sud à Saint-Louis du Sénégal
Photo: Remi Jouan, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why Saint-Louis is ochre yellow

Saint-Louis was founded by French traders in 1659 on a narrow island in the Senegal river and was for a time the capital of French West Africa. Its grid of streets is lined with two-storey houses with wooden balconies, shuttered windows and inner courtyards. They are painted ochre yellow, pink and cream, now weathered by sea air. An iron bridge of the 1890s links the island to the mainland. On the strip of sand facing the ocean is the fishing quarter. Its long wooden boats, called pirogues, are painted from end to end with stripes, names, flags and blessings in strong colours. The island has been a World Heritage Site since 2000.

Ochre yellow#E0A84AFaded pink#E3A99AShutter green#4F8A6BPirogue blue#2F6FB5Pirogue red#C8342B

Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.

Colours tied to Saint-Louis

OchreA natural earth pigment ranging from yellow to deep orange or brown
About this page

Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Saint-Louis, Senegal" on Wikipedia. If you know Saint-Louis and we have it wrong, tell us.

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Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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