Table 3. Population of Liberia: Preliminary Tabulation, 1962 Census

Source: Adapted from National Planning Agency, The Structure of the Liberian Population, by M. M. El-Imam, 1962.

laid-out streets. Although some of the dwellings, especially among the Kru, may be rectangular, the commonest type is a circular hut with a conical thatched roof. The huts are quite substantially framed, with lattice-like walls of wooden poles plastered inside and out with mud or whitish clay taken from termite mounds, when available.

Household groups live in a close cluster of huts that forms a compound screened by fences of reeds, woven palm fronds or similar material. Closely related families generally occupy a single neighborhood, known in the country as a quarter. In the larger towns, public buildings, shops and the better dwellings are increasingly being built of concrete or cinderblock in modern style and frequently are built away from the main town along roads or in spacious, fenced compounds.

Towns and villages are ordinarily located on high ground or the top of a hill, near a stream for water supply and in a place where arable land is easily accessible. Close by are old farm plots in varying stages of overgrowth, pieces of land under cultivation, and on the towns' fringes a few fruit trees and small garden patches for vegetables, cotton and tobacco. The towns usually have no grass, ornamental shrubbery or trees, except perhaps a single large specimen that has a sacred value for the community.

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Information on population movements is fragmentary, but it is clear that much of the migration is circular and that this pattern is probably caused more by reluctance to forsake ancestral communities for distant new homes than by any other factor. Some of the migrants, however, become permanent residents or remain at least for several years. Thus, the population of Monrovia has more than doubled since 1956, and sizable mining towns with a core of permanent residents have sprung up in only a few years. Transient migration is a problem for the mines and rubber plantations where labor requirements are not seasonal, and a full force can be maintained the year round only by vigorous recruiting. The fact that such a means is resorted to suggests that some of the migrants may be responding to pressures of tribal authorities in their home communities rather than to their own inclinations (see ch. 20, Labor).

CITIES AND TOWNS

Seat of government and the country's metropolis, Monrovia is the main communications center, site of the principal seaport and the only urban area in Liberia. Here, in 1822, the settlers from America gained their first foothold which they later expanded to establish the republic. Although Monrovia has been the country's nerve center ever since, it had only about 10,000 inhabitants at the start of World War II. Growth since then has been rapid. By 1963 the population exceeded 80,000, and the urban area was continuing to experience a boom in construction and expansion.

The main part of the city is on Cape Mesurado at the end of a peninsula separated from the mainland by a broad lagoon at the mouth of the Mesurado River. The older section, mainly a business district, ascends from the edge of the lagoon to ground that reaches an elevation of about 300 feet at Mamba Point, site of one of the principal residential areas. In the district of Camp Johnson, a mile or so southeast toward the mainland, are an impressive new capital building and executive mansion, the law courts and the University of Liberia. Beyond, along a sandy beach, are developing residential areas around Sinkor and Congotown.

The Free Port of Monrovia is on the seaward side of Bushrod Island, across the Mesurado lagoon from Monrovia and connected by a highway bridge. Opened in 1948, the port is protected by several miles of breakwater and has an extensive storage area. The island, which is about 8 miles long, is the terminus of the Bomi Hills Railway and is being developed as a combined industrial and residential zone. At the northern end, the William V. S. Tubman Bridge crosses the Saint Paul River and is used jointly by the railway and a trunk highway that gives access to the country west of the river. The only

other highway from Monrovia to the interior runs southeast along the Cape Mesurado peninsula and then turns inland to become the Principal Highway to the Guinea border near Ganta. There is a municipal airport at Sinkor suitable for 4-motor, propeller-type aircraft; the international airport for jet aircraft is about 50 miles away near Harbel. Although it has electricity, Monrovia was only partially served by a central water supply in 1964, and sewage disposal was mainly by means of septic tanks (see ch. 19, Industry).

Next in size to Monrovia, Buchanan, Harper and Vaitown, at the Bomi Hills mines, had estimated populations between 5,000 and 10,000 in 1963. Buchanan, near the mouth of the Saint John River and county seat of Grand Bassa County, is of growing importance as the overseas shipping point for iron ore brought from the Nimba Mountains by a railway completed in 1963. It has a newly built protected harbor for ore ships and a highway link with Monrovia via Harbel. Harper, at Cape Palmas, was one of the early coastal settlements and is the shipping point for the Firestone Cavalla Plantation some 15 miles inland and county seat of Maryland County. Rather isolated until recently, Harper is now linked by an all-weather road that runs inland across Grand Gedeh and Nimba Counties to the Principal Highway and Monrovia. Vaitown owes its origin to the Bomi Hills mines, opened in 1951. It is connected by rail and highway with Monrovia and has become a commercial center for the surrounding area.

CHAPTER 4

ETHNIC GROUPS AND LANGUAGES

The Liberian Yearbook for 1962 asserts that "today, it is unacceptable to call one a 'native' or 'Americo-Liberian'... The name 'Liberian' is the only acceptable political appellation." The 1956 yearbook had distinguished between the Americo-Liberians (described as "descendants of the early settlers") and the tribal (indigenous) people. The difference in these treatments indicates the nature of one major ethnic distinction, the social and political problems entailed in that distinction and the official attitude with respect to it (see ch. 13, Political Dynamics; ch. 16, Attitudes and Reactions).

Less salient, but of long-range importance, are the ethnic differences among the tribal peoples who make up the bulk of the population. Fewer than a million tribal Liberians are divided among more than a dozen ethnic groups of which the most important are the Kpelle, Gola, Loma, Bassa, Kru, Grebo, Mandingo, Vai, Mano and Gio. Each group is called a tribe in official terminology and in much scholarly writing, but the term does not imply that any of these groups has formed a single political unit at any time.

In official language, echoed in many public statements, unification has been a major goal since 1944. The concept refers primarily to the obliteration of social, political and economic barriers, if not of cultural differences, between the tribal and nontribal peoples and to the integration of the tribals on an equal basis into the political, economic and social life of the nation. Although some important steps toward this goal have been taken, especially in the early 1960's, the process is a slow one (see ch. 5, Social Structure; ch. 13, Political Dynamics; ch. 16, Attitudes and Reactions).

DESCENDANTS OF SETTLERS AND OTHERS
CALLED CIVILIZED

The core of the country's nontribal-civilized in Liberian usagepopulation is constituted by the descendants of the early settlers, usually referred to as Americo-Liberians. The government now disapproves of this term, but it can be used to distinguish a historically important group. A second element, locally called Congos, was made up of a miscellany of Africans landed in Liberia from