Western Area

Western Area contains Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, commercial center, and only major port—a city of 1.35 million (2024 census) that concentrates manufacturing, trade, and administrative functions. Freetown produces consumer goods: cigarettes, sugar, alcoholic beverages, soap, footwear, textiles, and processes mineral fuels. This manufacturing base exists because the port provides access to imports and export markets; provincial areas lack both infrastructure and supply chains for industrial production. The economy of Sierra Leone ($8.39 billion GDP, 2025) flows through Freetown—61-67% of exports are minerals extracted elsewhere but shipped via the capital. The Lungi Bridge project connecting Western Area to the north addresses chronic connectivity gaps that raise transport costs. Growth projections of 4.3% (2025) depend partly on services sector performance, which concentrates in Freetown. The city demonstrates classic primate city dynamics: disproportionate concentration of urban functions relative to national population. Post-civil war reconstruction (since 2002) improved Freetown's infrastructure while provincial areas lag. The Medium-Term National Development Plan (2024-2030) and 'Big Five' program aim to spread development benefits, but institutional capacity, skilled labor, and existing infrastructure concentrate in Western Area. Freetown's role as sole significant port makes it the chokepoint through which Sierra Leone's economy—minerals out, manufactured goods in—necessarily flows.