About
Chad is a landlocked country in North Central Africa. The official languages spoken are Arabic and French, as a result of French colonisation in the 19th century. However, it is home to more than 200 ethnic groups and languages and has a rich, diverse cultural history. The area now known as Chad has been settled for 2000 years; artefacts show it was a centre of transit thanks to the trans-Saharan trade route running through the region. Chad achieved independence in 1960 and has spent the intervening years suffering political instability and substantial poverty, exacerbated by the Darfur crisis in neighbouring Sudan.