The Republic of Senegal is the most westerly state of Africa. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south. Its size is almost 197,000 km² with an estimated population of nearly 11,700,000. Dakar is the capital city of Senegal, located on the Cape Verde Peninsula on the country's Atlantic coast.

It is now known that Senegal has been inhabited since Paleolithic and Neolithic period. This has been evidenced by the discovery of household implements and tools as well as stone circles. One of the major ethnic groups, the Tukulor, occupied the lower Senegal Valley since the 11th century.

Senegalese exposure to European trade started in 1444 when the Portuguese established trading posts along the coast on the river Senegal, Goree (which eventually became a major slave transit post), Rufisque and along the south as a whole.

While struggles for power among the European powers were going on, the Serer of Sine and Saloum also used this period to establish independent kingdoms. With the spread of Islamic influences in the Kingdoms, Islam gained strength and finally in 1776, Tukulor Muslims established a theocratic confederacy in Fouta Toro.