File:Txu-pclmaps-oclc-8321160-bathurst.jpg|thumb|left|Bathurst [Banjul] 1:2,500 (6.6 MB) and city center Surveyed in 1910-11 and partly Revised in 1918 by W.F. Crook, reprinted by Engineer Reproduction Plant, U.S. Army War College 1941 at the entrance to Banjul. The statue of the former president
Yahya Jammeh was removed following democratic elections in 2016. In 1651, Banjul was leased by
the Duke of Courland and Semigallia (
German:
Herzog von Kurland und Semgallen) from the King of
Kombo, as part of the
Curonian colonization. On 23 April 1816,
Tumani Bojang, the King of Kombo, ceded Banjul Island to
Alexander Grant, the British commandant, in exchange for an annual fee of 103 iron bars. Grant's expedition, consisting of 75 men and tasked with establishing a military garrison, had been ordered by
Charles MacCarthy. Grant founded Banjul as a trading post and base, constructing houses and barracks for controlling entrance to the Gambia estuary and suppressing the
slave trade. The British renamed Banjul Island as St. Mary's Island and named the new town Bathurst, after
the 3rd Earl Bathurst,
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies at the time. Within a few years of its establishment, the town started attracting migrants. Its population consisted of Africans of various origins,
Levantines (Syrians, Lebanese) as well as Europeans (English, French, Portuguese). A majority of the population was Muslim but there was a significant Christian minority, including the
Aku inhabitants. The majority of the Africans consisted of
Wolof people, whose population rose from 829 in 1881 to 3,666 in 1901 and then 10,130 in 1944. They had mainly hailed from
Gorée and
Saint-Louis. The
Mandinka were the second largest African group, followed by the
Jola as well as the
Fula. The
Serer people make up 3.5% of the country's demographics. Islamic schools called
dara were founded in Bathurst from its early years, resulting in the foundation of the first Muslim court in 1905, in addition to the increasingly more sophisticated British legal framework. Young men from rural farming villages would move to Bathurst to work at the Public Works Department (established in 1922) or docks. The town was an important Allied naval and air hub during
World War II, resulting in an increase in population from 14,370 in 1931 to 21,154 in 1944. After independence, the town's name was changed to Banjul in 1973. On 22 July 1994, Banjul was the scene of a bloodless military
coup d'état in which President Sir
Dawda Jawara was overthrown and replaced by
Yahya Jammeh. To commemorate this event,
Arch 22 was built as an entrance portal to the capital. The gate is 35 metres tall and stands at the centre of an open square. It houses a
textile museum. ==Climate==