Dalaba ( Pular : 𞤁𞤢𞤤𞤢𞤦𞤢𞥄) is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

and sub-prefecture in the Dalaba Prefecture in the Mamou Region of

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

. It was once home to a

sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often in a health ...

, and to Miriam Makeba, who last visited the town in 1988, when she came to see her niece, N'Tombi Makeba, who lived in Miriam's house (a round building dating to the French colonial period, but using the same form as traditional homes in the region) for a number of years in the 1980s. The town is also known for its local strawberries. The town of Dalaba is the highest (in altitude) town in Guinea. It is approximately 200 km by air from the capital

Conakry Conakry ( , ; ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guinea. A port city, it serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea. Its population as of the 2014 Guinea census was 1,660,973. The current population of C ...

and about 280 km by road. The inhabitants of Dalaba are mostly Fula (; ). The market day in Dalaba is Sunday. The women of Dalaba dye cotton damask fabric a rich-hued

indigo InterGlobe Aviation Limited (d/b/a IndiGo), is an India, Indian airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest List of airlines of India, airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 64.1% domestic market ...

in detailed tie-dyed patterns.

Climate

Like the rest of the Futa Djalon region of which it is part, Dalaba's climate is moderated by the altitude. It was a popular retreat area for French during the colonial period largely for that reason. It is said locally that there was snowfall in Dalaba once in the 1930s.

History

The French botanist Auguste Chevalier experimented with the planting of certain

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

species in the vicinity of Dalaba in the early 1900s. That area was known as the Chevalier arboretum, but is now called the Barry Gassimou garden."Tourism: Nature- Culture - Hospitality" Consulate of the Republic of Guinea (Netherlands)

References

{{Dalaba Prefecture Sub-prefectures of the Mamou Region