Gbarnga is the big city of Liberia's interior and the gateway to the country's rural heartland. Capital of Bong County, in Kpelle country, it is a busy crossroads of routes and trade, with lively markets, a pace far removed from the coast and the authentic pulse of deep Liberia. It is not a city of grand monuments, but of intense everyday life and a strategic location.
Its name is etched into Liberia's recent history: during the first civil war, Gbarnga was the headquarters of Charles Taylor, from where he controlled much of the country. Today, at peace, it is a university town (the well-regarded Cuttington University is nearby) and a trading centre, an ideal base for exploring the interior: Kpatawee Falls is just 30 km away, and from here you can head on to Ganta and the Nimba mountains.
This guide tells you what to see and do in and around Gbarnga, how to get there from Monrovia, how to use it as a base for trips into the interior and what to expect from a city with no developed tourist infrastructure but full of life. It is a stop for travellers who want to go beyond the capital and discover rural, Kpelle, central Liberia.
Gbarnga grew as the commercial and administrative centre of Bong County, in the heart of Kpelle territory, home to Liberia's largest ethnic group. In a farming region nicknamed 'the breadbasket of Liberia', it established itself as the big city of the interior. Its name became forever linked to the civil war: in the 1990s it was the headquarters of Charles Taylor and his NPFL, the de facto capital of the rebel 'Greater Liberia'. After the devastation of the war, Gbarnga was reborn as a university and trading town and as a base for nature tourism in the interior. The full story is on our dedicated page.
Read the full history ↓The forested, mountainous interior: hidden waterfalls in Bong, trading towns in the centre and the Mount Nimba massif, a World Heritage Site on the border with Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire.
Read the history of The green heart: Bong and Nimba →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Gbarnga stands in the centre of Liberia, in the heart of the land of the Kpelle people, the country's largest ethnic group. The Kpelle are a farming people of the interior, rice growers above all (rice is Liberia's staple food), who also grow cassava, coffee, cocoa, palm and other crops. They have a rich culture of music, dance, crafts and traditional societies that have shaped community life for centuries.
Bong, the region with Gbarnga as its capital, is fertile land with gentle hills, rivers and forest. It farms so well that it's nicknamed 'the breadbasket of Liberia'. Before modern towns grew up here, the area was a patchwork of Kpelle villages that farmed and traded across the interior. Paths linked them, and goods moved between the forest, the farmland and, further off, the coast.
Gbarnga was born and grew as a meeting and trading point for that farming region, a place where the routes of the interior came together. Being a crossroads and the trading centre of rural Liberia still shapes who it is today. It's a Kpelle town that lives from farming and trade, very different from the Americo-Liberian, cosmopolitan world of the coast.
Over the 20th century, Gbarnga gradually became the main urban centre of Liberia's interior and the capital of Bong County. Roads from Monrovia to the north-east (towards Ganta, the Nimba mountains and the Guinean border) and to other central regions meet here. That location made it a transport and trading hub that kept growing in importance.
Missions and schools and hospitals played a key part in the area's growth. Near Gbarnga, in Suakoko, the Episcopal Church founded Cuttington University, considered the oldest private university in Liberia. Next to it is Phebe Hospital, a major health centre for the interior. These institutions made the region unusually important for education and healthcare in Liberia.
By the late 20th century, Gbarnga was already the big city of the Liberian interior. It ran the government, trade and schooling of Bong and much of central Liberia. That weight and strategic importance partly explain the tragic part the city would play in the civil war that was about to break out.
Gbarnga's name is burned into Liberia's recent history because of its role in the civil war. In December 1989, Charles Taylor launched the rebellion of his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) from the border with Côte d'Ivoire, and his movement quickly took over much of the country. Gbarnga, in Liberia's strategic centre, became his headquarters and the de facto capital of the area he ruled, known as 'Greater Liberia'.
For much of the First Civil War (1989-1997), Taylor ran a kind of parallel state from Gbarnga, with its own administration, its own courts and a war economy built on exploiting natural resources. The city was the base of one of the most powerful and feared factions in a conflict marked by mass atrocities and the large-scale recruitment of child soldiers.
Being at the centre cost Gbarnga and Bong County dearly: years of fighting, mass displacement, destruction and suffering. Like the rest of Liberia, the region was left devastated and poor. The war only ended for good in 2003, when Charles Taylor went into exile and peace finally came. He was later tried and convicted of war crimes for his role in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
When the war ended in 2003, Gbarnga began a slow but steady recovery. The city became an active centre of the interior again. Trade and markets picked up, Cuttington University and Phebe Hospital reopened, and everyday city life returned to streets that had been a battleground. Gbarnga was once more the interior's big city and central Liberia's transport hub.
After the war, Bong County looked for new ways to grow, building on its farming (it is 'the breadbasket of Liberia'), on education and, more and more, on ecotourism. Kpatawee Falls, about 30 km away, became the country's most popular nature destination. Gbarnga became the natural base for visiting it, and tourism joined the city's traditional roles.
Today, Gbarnga stands for the rebirth of the Liberian interior. It's a city shaped by a hard history but now at peace, growing and full of life. It's the gateway to rural, Kpelle Liberia, a base for visiting Kpatawee and a springboard to Ganta and the Nimba mountains. For travellers, it's a chance to see a side of the country very different from the coast: the green, farming and authentic heart of Liberia.
