Population: 20,062
District Area: Unknown
Leader: Unknown
Name and Etymology:
Falaba is the seat of the Sulima/Solima Chiefdom of Sierra Leone's Falaba District.
Economy:
The economy of Falaba was based on the slave trade in the nineteenth century as the town sat on a major route from the African interior to the coast. It was devastated in Sierra Leone's civil war and is now a farming settlement.
History:
Falaba was the capital of the Solimana state in the nineteenth century and became "British" in 1822. It was conquered by the Mandinka in 1884 after the Solimana chief Manga Sewa called the townspeople into its gunpowder magazine and ignited it. Falaba declined in importance after the Anglo-French treaty of 1895 and was almost completely deserted following the civil war in 1998.
