Bimbia

Bimbia lay on the forested lowlands south of Mount Cameroon and west of the Wouri estuary, in the country of the Isubu. Its principal settlement overlooked the eastern coast of the Limbé district and formed part of a landscape of rivers, estuaries and nearby islands. Three villages (Dikolo, Bona Ngombe and Bona Bille) continued to mark the old political territory into later times.

Isubu oral history links the people to Mboko, southwest of Mount Cameroon. It remembers Isuwu na Monanga as the leader who brought them to the west bank of the Wouri estuary, and King Mbimbi as the ruler whose name came to identify the state. Portuguese traders reached the estuary in 1472. Over the following decades Isubu merchants became intermediaries, carrying ivory, kola nuts and peppers from inland while also participating in the slave trade.

Bimbia became the primary Isubu settlement and, by the sixteenth century, was second only to the Duala in regional trade. British influence grew during the nineteenth century. Bimbia sheltered repatriated and escaped captives.

The later city of Buea lies here.