Roofing in Chad

Chad spans the Sahara in the north, the dry Sahel in the centre and wetter savanna in the south, with Lake Chad and the Logone and Chari rivers in the south-west. Its building traditions follow that gradient: tents and light shelters among the nomadic groups of the sparsely settled north, clay buildings in Sahelian towns such as Abéché, the walled clay cities of the Kotoko on the Logone-Chari plain, and round, thatched houses in the villages of the farming south. Corrugated iron and concrete construction is now spreading rapidly.

Climate and hazards

Rainfall rises sharply from north to south, with a single rainy season. In the Sahel and north, the main stresses on roofs are intense sun, extreme heat and wind-blown dust; the south receives more rain. Organic roofs face termites and fire throughout.

Roofing history

Kotoko city-states. From about 1000 CE, Kotoko towns grew up on the plains south of Lake Chad, a region now divided between Chad and Cameroon. At the early town of Houlouf, which grew between about 1000 and 1400 CE, an earthen rampart enclosed some 16 ha (40 acres) of rectangular mud-brick houses with flat roofs, arranged in walled compounds within named city quarters and around a large palace. Later towns had palaces, as at Gulfey and Logone-Birni, and mosques, as at Kousseri; their clay buildings grew by accretion, with new enclosures built against older ones.

Round to square. A 1971 study of the strip of land between the Logone and Chari rivers south of the capital (then Fort-Lamy, founded by the French in 1900, now N'Djamena) documented the replacement of round traditional dwellings by rectangular houses and examined the motives behind the change.

Modern period. Old capitals keep few historic buildings beyond some palaces and mosques. N'Djamena was heavily damaged in the war of 1980-1982 and has since grown rapidly, with services and infrastructure lagging. Across the country, iron-and-concrete buildings increasingly stand beside traditional mud houses.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Flat earth roofs on rectangular mud-brick houses in Kotoko towns and other Sahelian settlements (see Sahelian earthen roofs).
• Round traditional dwellings of the Logone-Chari plain and the farming south, documented in 1971 as being replaced by rectangular houses; a historical photograph records a communal house in Chad with a newly thatched roof. The Sara, the main farming people of the south, live mainly between Lake Iro and the Logone river.
• Earthen domes: across the border in Cameroon's Far North, the Musgum built tall earthen domes (see Musgum tolek).
• Tents and shelters of nomadic groups in the north.

Roofing today

Traditional house styles remain in the countryside, but corrugated-iron and concrete buildings have rapidly expanded, especially in towns.

Notable roofs

• Abéché: a town noted for clay buildings, monuments and narrow winding streets.
• Kotoko palaces and mosques of the Logone-Chari plain, such as those at Gulfey and Kousseri.

Sources and gaps

No information on domestic roofing manufacturers was found in published sources.

National census or DHS roofing shares: published information is limited. The construction of Kotoko and Sahelian flat roofs (timber or palm beams, mats and earth layers), Sara thatching techniques and Chadian building regulations are not documented in published sources. The precise border location of individual Kotoko towns is not stated in published sources.