Kantora District is one of the four
districts of the
Upper River Division of
the Gambia
The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...
. It is the easternmost district of the country.
The name derives from the Mandinka phrase "kana-ntoro," meaning "do not trouble me," referring to the disputes that
Tiramakhan Traore's expedition struggled with there. They founded the village of Songkunda, meaning "place of agreement," to commemorate the re-establishment of peace.
The name of the area appears in written records as early as the 1456 voyage of
Diego Gomes. At one point Kantora was a province of the
Kabu Empire but it had different boundaries then. In particular,
Duarte Pacheco Pereira noted in 1506 that
Sutuco on the north bank of the river was the main trading center of Kantora. By the 1621 visit of
Richard Jobson, however, the north bank was under the control of the King of
Wuli.
References
Upper River Division
Districts of the Gambia
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