Freetown
capital of Sierra Leone
Freetown (Krio: Fritɔun) is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and political centre, as it is the seat of the Government of Sierra Leone. The population of Freetown was 1,347,559 as of the 2024 census.
The city's economy revolves largely around its harbour, which occupies a part of the estuary of the Sierra Leone River in one of the world's largest natural deep water harbours.
Although the city has traditionally been the homeland of the Sierra Leone Creole people, the population of Freetown is ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse. The city is home to a significant population of all of Sierra Leone's ethnic groups, with no single ethnic group forming more than 27% of the city's population. As in virtually all parts of Sierra Leone, the Krio language of the Sierra Leone Creole people is Freetown's primary language of communication and is by far the most widely spoken language in the city.
The city of Freetown was founded on March 11, 1792, by 1,196 African Americans under the guidance of abolitionist Lieutenant John Clarkson at the foot of the Cotton Tree, and the city became a settlement for free and freed African American, Afro-Caribbean and Liberated African slaves. Their descendants are known as the Creole people.
“Freetown” enters the record as capital of Sierra Leone. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Freetown, capital and Sierra can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3780. VIAF identifies the subject as 154786869. The Library of Congress control number is n82013152. Authority coordinates are 8.487, -13.236. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024 and 1792.
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This entry incorporates text from “Freetown” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.