Cameroon can be divided into four main regions. First, there is a coastal belt with mangrove forests and swamps that stretch up to 60 kilometres inland. These give way to the east to rocky plateaux. Much of the far north is a broad savannah plain with occasional hills leading to the shores of Lake Chad. The highest part of the country is along the border with Nigeria, a region that includes Mount Cameroon, the highest point in West Africa.
Cameroon has a diverse population, fractured along lines of ethnicity and language. There are thought to be around 200 ethnic groups. In the west the largest include the Bamiléké, who are one of the main commercial influences in the largest cities. In the north there are the Fulani and the Kirdi. And in the south there are the politically more powerful Fang and Beti. These differences open up a number of potential divisions: between the Islamic north and the Christian south, for example, and between pastoralists and farmers. But the most significant political differences arise from the colonial experience. The east of Cameroon was colonized by the French and the west by the British. Today the country is around two-thirds Francophone, and one-third Anglophone—with the latter tended to be marginalized.
Although they had been doing well by the standards of Sub-Saharan Africa, most Cameroonians have seen a fall in living standards since the mid-1980s. The proportion of children going to school has dropped by around one-fifth and the literacy rate is falling. Their health too has been hit by reductions in public expenditure. Only around half the population have access to clean water and sanitation.
More than 60% of Cameroonians still rely directly or indirectly on agriculture. The land is fertile and the country is usually self-sufficient in basic food crops like cassava, corn, millet, and plantains. The most important cash crops are cocoa, coffee, bananas, and cotton, which are mostly grown on small holdings, though they are marketed through state corporations. In the south, there are also plantations growing palm oil and rubber. The country's extensive grasslands also offer grazing for livestock, which provide meat both for local consumption and export.
Cameroon's dense forests in the centre and south, as well as in the coastal belt, have also been an important source of income. Around one-third of the forest area has been exploited, chiefly for the export of mahogany, teak, and ebony. This activity is largely in the hands of multinational companies, but there have been increasing concerns about the over-exploitation of the forests as well as the effects on the country's oldest inhabitants, the pygmies—hunter-gatherers who live in the southern forests.
Economic prospects brightened with the discovery of offshore oil in 1976. Production started in 1978 and peaked in 1985. Since then, some of the better fields have matured and companies are having to exploit more marginal deposits. There has been little new investment and current known reserves suggest that output may not be sustained at current levels beyond 2005. Oil flows provided a sudden injection of wealth into the economy, but much of this was dissipated in unwise public expenditure, and through corruption. When the oil price crashed in the mid-1980s, Cameroon crashed with it, suffering one of Sub-Saharan Africa's steepest economic declines. Over the same period, Cameroon also suffered from overvaluation of the CFA franc. The 50% devaluation in 1994 caused a surge in inflation, though the economy subsequently recovered and growth resumed after 1996.
One of the most contentious current development projects is a proposed 1,100-kilometre oil pipeline from Chad through Cameroon's rainforests to the Atlantic coast. This project, which is likely to cause major ecological damage is the subject of an international protest campaign.
Since 1982, political power has been in the hand of President Paul Biya. He is from the southern Beti group, but has adroitly manipulated the country's various ethnic divides. Initially, he headed a one-party state, but a wave of social agitation in 1990 forced Biya to permit multi-party politics. In a 1992 election alleged to have been rigged, Biya was elected president at the head of his own party the Rassemblement démocratique du peuple Camerounais (RDPC)—narrowly defeating John Fru Ndi of the main Anglophone opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF).
Biya won again in 1997, but this time all three opposition parties boycotted the election after the government refused to appoint an independent electoral commission. The SDF, whose power base is among the Bamiléké, wants to see constitutional reform, and its more radical elements demand secession for the English-speaking provinces. Thus far, Biya has successfully resisted these pressures, but increasing levels of poverty throughout the country could weaken his position.